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THE  ODES  AND  EPODES 
OF  HORACE 
Volume  I 


INTRODUCTION,  LIFE,  AND  ESSAYS 


The  Life  by  Professor  Smith  in  this  work  is 
from  his  edition  of  the  Odes  and  Epodes  in 
the  College  Series  of  Latin  Authors , and  is 
reprinted  by  permission  of  Professors  Smith 
and  Peck , the  editors  of  the  Series , and  with 
the  consent  of  the  publishers , Ginn  and 
Company . 


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Etching  by  W.  H.  W.  Bicknell 
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A list  of  one  hundred  and  forty-seven  cities  and 
towns , showing  the  distribution  of  the  Bibliophile 
Horace,  will  be  found  in  the  back  of  the  Book  of 
Epodes , Volume  VI.  An  alphabetical  Index  of  the 
translators  is  also  printed  in  the  same  volume. 


>ES  8 EPODES 

ofO 

HORACE 

tept-eJfitaf 

Clement  Lawrence  Smith, )1M  LlD 

3) can  of  ^T^uftyofjif'h  &jcienccj 
~ anc/,  ‘Profess  orofXgtiit  iro 

\\arVlird\x  n i vcrsltvy^^0 

With  Versions , 'Paraphrases  cmj. 

escpl cLruLtory  Notes  fry  eminent 
^chola-rs^tatesmen  aruj^cets 

Witfi  an  introduction  by 
^XeHBlSHOp  1RZL/1ND 

Issued  by  t&e  Bibliophile  Society 
jorNiembers  ontys> 

BOSTON  1901 


M.PYCE*190 1 


Copyright , 1902,  by  The  Bibliophile  Society 
All  rights  reserved 


104648 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


No  writer  of  antiquity  has  taken  a stronger 
hold  upon  the  modern  mind  than  Horace.  The 
causes  of  this  are  manifold,  but  three  may  be 
especially  noted  : his  broad  human  sympathies, 
his  vigorous  common-sense,  and  his  consum- 
mate mastery  of  expression.  The  mind  must 
be  either  singularly  barren  or  singularly  cold  to 
which  Horace  does  not  speak.  The  scholar, 
the  statesman,  the  soldier,  the  man  of  the 
world,  the  town-bred  man,  the  lover  of  the 
country,  the  thoughtful  and  the  careless,  he 
who  reads  much,  and  he  who  reads  little,  all 
find  in  his  pages  more  or  less  to  amuse  their 
fancy,  to  touch  their  feelings,  to  quicken  their 
observation,  to  nerve  their  convictions,  to  put 
into  happy  phrase  the  deductions  of  their 
experience.  His  poetical  sentiment  is  not 
pitched  in  too  high  a key  for  the  unimagina- 
tive, but  it  is  always  so  genuine  that  the  most 
imaginative  feel  its  charm.  His  wisdom  is 


i 


deeper  than  it  seems,  so  simple,  practical,  and 
direct  as  it  is  in  its  application ; and  his  moral 
teaching  more  spiritual  and  penetrating  than 
is  apparent  on  a superficial  study.  He  does 
not  fall  into  the  common  error  of  didactic 
writers,  of  laying  upon  life  more  than  it  will 
bear  ; but  he  insists  that  it  shall  at  least  bear 
the  fruits  of  integrity,  truth,  honour,  justice, 
self-denial,  and  brotherly  charity.  Over  and 
above  the  mere  literary  charm  of  his  works, 
too,  — and  herein,  perhaps,  lies  no  small  part 
of  the  secret  of  his  popularity,  — the  warm 
heart  and  thoroughly  urbane  nature  of  the 
man  are  felt  instinctively  by  his  readers,  and 
draw  them  to  him  as  to  a friend. 

Hence  it  is  that  we  find  he  has  been  a man- 
ual with  men  the  most  diverse  in  their  natures, 
culture,  and  pursuits.  Dante  ranks  him  next 
after  Homer.  Montaigne,  as  might  be  ex- 
pected, knows  him  by  heart.  Fenelon  and 
Bossuet  never  weary  of  quoting  him.  La  Fon- 
taine polishes  his  own  exquisite  style  upon  his 
model ; and  Voltaire  calls  him  “ the  best  of 
preachers.’’  Hooker  escapes  with  him  to  the 
fields  to  seek  oblivion  of  a hard  life,  made 
harder  by  a shrewish  spouse.  Lord  Chester- 
field tells  us,  “ When  I talked  my  best  I quoted 


2 


Horace.”  To  Boileau  and  to  Wordsworth  he 
is  equally  dear.  Condorcet  dies  in  his  dun- 
geon with  Horace  open  by  his  side  ; and  in 
Gibbon’s  militia  days,  “ on  every  march,”  he 
says,  “in  every  journey,  Horace  was  always 
in  my  pocket,  and  often  in  my  hand.”  And 
as  it  has  been,  so  it  is.  In  many  a pocket, 
where  this  might  least  be  expected,  lies  a 
well-thumbed  Horace ; and  in  many  a de- 
vout Christian  heart  the  maxims  of  the  gentle, 
genial  pagan  find  a place  near  the  higher 
teachings  of  a greater  master. 

From  Horace , by  Sir  Theodore 
Martin,  in  Ancient  Classics 
for  English  Readers . 


3 


INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  ODES 
AND  EPODES 


BY  ARCHBISHOP  IRELAND 

Exegi  monumentum  acre  perennius. 

With  these  proud  words  Horace  launched 
his  verses  into  the  ages.  In  a moment  of  po- 
etic inspiration  he  had  already  foretold  that 
all  lands  would  hear  him  and  his  music.  What 
the  poet  prophesied  has  come  to  pass.  Far 
beyond  the  Bosphorus  and  the  Rhone,  beyond 
Gastulian  sands  and  Hyperborean  snows,  his 
songs  have  been  sung  as  of  yore  they  were 
sung  on  the  hills  by  the  Tiber.  What  in  his 
own  day  and  in  his  own  country  he  was  for 
Augustus  and  Maecenas,  for  Pollio  and  Messala, 
for  Vergil  and  Varius,  that  he  has  been  in 
every  age  and  every  land  for  all  who  could 
appreciate  a rare  nature  and  love  grace  of  fancy 
and  beauty  of  language.  Horace  is  immortal. 
Among  men  of  the  world  he  will  ever  be  the 

S 


consummate  poet ; among  poets  he  will  ever 
be  the  consummate  man  of  the  world. 

Horace  was  one  of  those  choice  spirits 
whose  marvellous  breadth  of  sympathy  brings 
them  into  contact  with  every  type  of  our  com- 
mon human  nature.  Few  poets  have  revealed 
themselves  so  fully  in  their  musings  as  Horace 
has  done  — his  personality  is  blended  with  his 
poetry  — and  his  stanzas  show  him  to  us  with 
all  his  rich  and  varied  gifts  of  mind  and  heart 
as  one  of  nature’s  gentlemen.  He  was  of 
lowly  stock,  and  yet  none  of  his  lines  are  so 
touching  as  those  that  tell  with  deepest  filial 
tenderness  the  praises  of  his  father.  Poverty 
drove  him  to  make  verses,  but  a native  dignity 
of  mind  rendered  him  the  peer  of  the  haugh- 
tiest in  the  splendid  society  to  which  he  won 
his  way.  Wealth  and  honours  he  could  have 
had  for  the  asking,  but  he  prized  the  simple 
joys  of  a homely  life  above  the  splendour  of 
monarchs  and  their  courts.  He  is  the  poet  of 
human  nature.  As  we  stroll  with  him  along 
the  Via  Sacra,  or  lounge  in  the  Campus  Mar- 
tius,  or  pick  our  steps  through  the  Suburra, 
or  watch  the  tide  of  fashion  roll  along  the  Via 
Appia,  we  see  Rome  as  Horace  saw  and  loved 
it,  and  we  see  life  in  all  its  aspects  through  the 

6 


eyes  of  the  shrewdest  and  kindliest  observer 
of  men  and  manners.  Nothing  escapes  his 
notice,  there  is  no  theme  that  he  does  not 
discuss,  no  phase  of  character  that  he  does 
not  portray.  His  philosophy  is  the  fruit  of 
his  own  study  of  human  ways  that  are  ever 
the  same,  and  his  words  with  their  wisdom  of 
wide  experience  have  a perennial  freshness  for 
every  new  generation  and  find  application  in  a 
hundred  incidents  of  our  lives.  Be  the  weather 
fair  or  foul,  Horace  is  a pleasant  companion. 
He  is  always  genial  and  gentle,  manly  and 
candid,  as  ready  to  joke  about  the  shield  not 
over  bravely  left  behind  at  Philippi  as  he  is  to 
smile  at  the  follies  and  foibles  of  other  men. 
As  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend,  he  is  never 
tiresome.  In  easy  chatty  verses  he  gives  les- 
sons in  the  art  of  living.  His  lessons  are  often 
told  with  a laugh,  but  are  always  replete  with 
wisdom.  They  are  expressed  in  language  ever 
resonant  of  sweetest  music.  They  are  easily 
remembered,  condensed  as  they  are  in  few 
words,  no  one  else  being  so  faithful  as  Horace 
is  to  the  poetic  canon : “ In  all  your  precepts 
be  mindful  to  be  brief.”  Matter  and  form 
combine  in  Horace  to  make  him  the  most 
readable  and  most  quotable  of  the  poets. 

7 


With  Horace  we  live  in  Rome  in  the  midst 
of  men  ; with  him,  also,  we  live  amid  the 
sweet  sights  and  sounds  of  nature.  Nature  he 
loved  with  a love  begotten  of  the  days  when 
the  legendary  doves  covered  him  with  leaves 
as  he  lay  sleeping  on  the  slope  of  the  Apen- 
nines, 

Non  sine  dis  animosus  infans. 

Many  odes  of  Horace  are  the  daintiest  of 
pictures  of  home  life  and  of  delicious  land- 
scapes. Now  we  catch  a glimpse  of  a blaz- 
ing hearth,  while  without  the  woodland  boughs 
are  groaning  under  their  weight  of  snow,  and 
Soracte  afar  off  stands  gleaming  in  its  un- 
wonted mantle  of  white.  Now  we  are  lured 
to  a spot  by  a babbling  brook,  where  the 
gloomy  pine  and  the  white  poplar  love  to 
twine  their  branches  in  affording  a friendly 
shade.  Whatever  be  his  theme,  be  it  grave 
or  gay,  Horace  writes  as  one  whose  eyes  are 
full  of  visions  of  crystal  fountains,  whose  ears 
are  haunted  with  the  hum  and  murmur  of  the 
woods. 

Thus  do  we  see  Horace  in  all  his  moods. 
“ Age  cannot  wither  nor  custom  stale  his  infi- 
nite variety.”  Such  a man  could  not  but  be 
blessed  with  friends,  and  to  him  his  friends  are 

8 


such  that  the  world  could  not  show  souls 
more  purely  white  : — 

animae  quales  neque  candidiores 
terra  tulit. 

No  day  is  like  the  day  that  brings  him  a friend, 
no  sorrow  like  the  sorrow  caused  by  the  loss 
of  a friend  : — 

Quis  desiderio  sit  pudor  aut  modus 
tam  cari  capitis  ? Praecipe  lugubres 
cantus,  Melpomene,  cui  liquidam  pater 
vocem  cum  cithara  dedit. 

Vergil  he  hails  as  part  and  parcel  of  his  life 
— animae  dimidium  meae . With  Maecenas,  who 
so  often  left  the  palace  on  the  Esquiline  to 
share  the  Sabine  fare  of  the  poet,  he  pledged 
undying  faith,  and  his  impassioned  words  bear 
witness  that  no  bootless  oath  he  has  sworn  to 
travel  with  his  dear  knight  the  last  dark  jour- 
ney of  life : — 

ibimus,  ibimus, 

utcunque  praecedes,  supremum 
carpere  iter  comites  parati. 

How  closely  knit  his  friends  were  to  him 
we  glean  from  the  last  words  of  Maecenas  to 
Augustus : — 

Horatii  Flacci  ut  mei  memor  este. 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  master  of  the  world 

9 


himself  should  covet  the  friendship  of  the 
freedman’s  son ; for  if  after  the  lapse  of  long 
ages  the  world  loves  Horace  for  his  own  sake, 
how  much  must  they  have  loved  him  who 
could  greet  him  as  an  honoured  guest  in  their 
mansions,  or  share  the  coenae  noctesque  Deum 
in  the  simple  home  among  the  Sabine  hills  ? 

As  a man  among  men,  Horace  is  the  per- 
sonal friend  of  each  and  every  one  of  us  ; as  a 
poet,  he  is  no  less  the  lasting  favourite  of 
young  and  old.  In  the  art  of  wedding  “ per- 
fect music  unto  noble  words,”  he  has  never 
been  surpassed.  What  a poet  should  be  — 
quid  alet  formetque  poetam  — none  knew  better 
than  Horace  knew.  To  delight  and  to  in- 
struct — such  is  the  task  assigned  to  those  who 
are  consecrated  to  the  Muses,  and  well  did 
Horace  discharge  the  duty.  It  is  chiefly  on 
his  odes  that  his  fame  will  rest ; they  are  the 
monument  more  enduring  than  brass  which 
he  has  reared  to  himself.  For  grace  of 
words  and  music  of  metre  these  odes  are 
unique  in  literature ; it  is  no  exaggeration  to 
say  with  Munro  that  their  mould  was  broken 
at  the  author’s  death.  La  Bruyere  has  well 
remarked  that  among  all  the  expressions  by 
which  we  may  voice  a single  one  of  our 


io 


thoughts,  there  is  in  reality  but  one  fitting 
expression.  Of  this  truth  Horace  was  keenly 
conscious,  and  he  proved  himself  a master  “ in 
fitting  aptest  words  to  things.”  Hence  the 
happy  ease,  the  curiosa  felicitas , of  which  Pe- 
tronius  speaks,  and  which  makes  his  verses  the 
delight  of  the  generations  ; hence  the  matchless 
beauty  of  the  phrases  which  like  jewels  gleam 
and  glitter  on  every  page.  As  we  meet  stanza 
after  stanza  sparkling  in  the  odes,  we  cannot 
but  think  of  some  gem-engraver  toiling  with 
delicate  touch  and  infinite  pains  to  polish 
fragments  of  translucent  stone.  And  to  witch- 
ery of  words  Horace  adds  melody  of  rhythm. 
He  is  the  minstrel  who  taught  the  world  the 
power  and  sweetness  of  the  Latin  lyre.  In  his 
odes  the  voice  of  empire  and  of  war  yielded 
music  undreamed  of  before,  well  worthy  of 
the  crown  of  Delphian  bay  that  the  poet 
claimed  as  his  own.  It  is  this  twofold  charm, 
grace  of  diction  and  melody  of  verse,  that 
lends  to  the  lyrics  of  Horace  the  power  of 
clinging  to  the  memory  such  as  no  other 
poetry  possesses. 

But  Horace  was  not  content  with  winning 
the  ear  of  the  world ; he  has  also  won  the 
heart  of  the  world.  It  is  not  enough,  he 


tells  us,  to  round  off  a verse  : truth  is  the 
very  breath  of  the  poet's  life  : — 

Scribendi  recte  sapere  est  et  principium  et  fons. 

The  wisdom  which  Horace  enshrined  in 
words  of  incommunicable  beauty  deserves  the 
poet's  highest  art.  True  it  is  that  as  we  listen 
to  the  cry  “ carpe  diem”  the  oft-repeated  call 
of  Bacchanal  philosophy,  we  are  tempted  to 
set  down  the  lyrics  as  the  gospel  of  frivolity, 
and  to  take  their  author  at  his  word  when  he 
styles  himself  a porker  of  the  Epicurean  pen, 
— Epicuri  de  grege  porcus.  And  it  must  be 
conceded  that  here  and  there  his  stanzas  are 
marred  with  a grossness  which  not  all  their 
literary  charm  can  redeem.  It  is,  however, 
plain  that  Horace’s  heart  is  not  in  such  effu- 
sions. It  is  only  as  a poet  that  he  trifles,  — 
only  when  he  sings  for  the  sake  of  song.  He 
is  at  his  best,  not  when  he  urges  us  to  pluck 
the  blossoms  of  to-day,  but  when  he  pleads 
for  the  virtues  that  he  loves  and  that  all  men 
should  love.  To  be  content  with  one's  lot,  to 
keep  a rein  upon  passion,  to  be  the  thing  one 
seems,  to  look  for  happiness  within,  not  with- 
out, to  be  patient  with  the  patience  that 
makes  all  things  easy,  to  face  danger  with 

12 


dauntless  front,  to  retain  a calm  mind  under 
the  frowns  as  well  as  the  smiles  of  fortune,  to 
be  ready  to  forego  all  in  order  to  be  free  in 
thought  and  act,  to  make  the  golden  mean 
one’s  rule  of  life,  to  love  peace,  — that  otium 
whose  praises  he  so  often  celebrates,  — 

Neque  purpura  venale  nec  auro, 

— these  things  does  Horace  sing  more  sweetly 
and  persuasively  than  they  were  ever  sung 
before.  Such  virtues  are  the  abiding  wisdom 
of  life,  and  in  words  which  we  could  not  for- 
get even  if  we  would,  Horace  never  grows 
weary  of  expounding  them.  Nowhere  does 
he  find  in  pleasure  the  Summum  Bonum  of 
existence.  Often,  indeed,  he  touches  the 
strings  of  his  lyre  as  the  bard  of  gaiety, — 
non  praeter  solitum  levis , — but  never  does  he 
present  to  us  as  his  ideal  the  man  who  lounges 
in  ease  and  affluence  through  life : — 

Non  possidentem  multa  vocaveris 
recte  beatum  : rectius  occupat 
nomen  bead,  qui  deorum 
muneribus  sapienter  uti 

duramque  callet  pauperiem  pad, 
peiusque  leto  flagitium  timet ; 
non  ille  pro  caris  amicis 
aut  patria  timidus  perire. 

l3 


Few  poems  in  any  language  can  surpass  in 
sonorous  dignity  and  grandeur  of  thought  the 
description  of  the  man  of  upright  purpose 
who  stands  unmoved  amid  the  ruins  of  a 
world.  As  we  ponder  such  verses  as  these  we 
feel  that  Horace  is  true  to  his  own  genius,  not 
when  he  sings  of  roses  and  parsley-wreaths 
and  wine-cups  and  all  the  soft  dalliance  of 
which  these  things  are  the  symbols,  but  when 
he  rises  in  lofty  strain  to  chant  the  praises  of 
virtue  that  ever  keeps  her  robe  unsullied,  or 
to  sing  with  infinite  pathos  the  alarms  and 
cares  of  life  and  the  mournful  lot  of  mortal- 
ity. As  with  all  great  poets,  his  “ sweetest 
songs  are  those  that  tell  of  saddest  thought/’ 
and  the  music  of  such  songs  is  but  the  echo 
of  the  music  of  the  sentiment  which  they 
express. 

It  is  when  Horace  treats  of  religion  and  of 
fatherland  that  he  seems  to  find  themes  most 
fitting  for  the  mens  divinior , and  the  os  magna 
sonaturum  of  the  true  poet.  Then  it  is  that 
his  genius,  like  the  Dircean  swan,  soars  into 
the  skies  and  sweeps  from  heaven  to  heaven. 
He  calls  himself,  indeed,  — 

Parcus  deorum  cultor  et  infrequens  ; — 

*4 


but  this  is  only  the  playful  prelude  to  the 
more  serious  thought  of  One  who  “ can  low- 
liest change  and  loftiest,  bring  down  the 
mighty  and  lift  up  the  weak.”  If  the  hand 
be  leal  and  spotless,  the  offering  of  meal  and 
crackling  salt  is  more  grateful  to  heaven  than 
the  most  elaborate  sacrifice.  Peoples,  like  in- 
dividuals, reap  the  consequences  of  their  deeds. 
Religion  is  the  very  condition  of  an  empire’s 
welfare,  and  from  the  neglect  of  the  altar 
flow  the  worst  ills  of  the  nation  : — 

Dis  te  minorem  quod  geris  imperas : 
hinc  omne  principium,  hue  refer  exitum. 

Di  multa  neglecti  dederunt 
Hesperiae  mala  luctuosae. 

The  law  of  God  must  be  supreme  in  the 
commonwealth  : — 

Regum  timendorum  in  proprios  greges 
reges  in  ipsos  imperium  est  Iovis. 

In  an  age  of  religious  decay  — for  the  gods 
of  Olympus  were  dead  — the  thoughts  of 
Horace  turned  often  and  anxiously  upon  the 
necessity  of  religion  as  the  basis  of  a nation’s 
greatness  and  prosperity. 

The  patriotic  odes  which  Horace  be- 
queathed to  the  ages  are  poems  of  which  any 
country  might  well  be  proud.  They  are  filled 

l5 


with  the  sense  of  the  grandeur  of  Rome  and 
with  the  glory  of  Rome’s  mighty  men  and 
mighty  deeds.  No  one  but  a patriot  could 
have  written  the  line,  — perhaps  the  noblest 
line  in  Latin  literature  : — 

Duke  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori. 

The  spirit  of  the  race  that  conquered  the 
world  breathes  in  the  verses  that  tell  of  the 
days  when  Cincinnatus  returned  from  his  wars 
to  his  plough.  The  story  of  Regulus  going 
back  to  Carthage  to  meet  his  doom  is  one  of 
the  most  inspiring  pictures  in  the  annals  of 
patriotism.  The  ode  on  the  Ship  of  State  is 
the  finest  political  allegory  in  the  pages  of  lit- 
erature. Horace  was  a profound  student  of 
his  country  and  his  time,  and  the  laughing 
levity  of  his  lighter  themes  often  gives  way 
to  the  strange  sternness  of  his  warnings  as  he 
predicts  the  decadence  of  the  Roman  people  : 

Damnosa  quid  nos  imminuit  dies ! 
aetas  parentum,  peior  avis,  tulit 
nos  nequiores,  mox  daturos 
progeniem  vitiosiorem. 

The  poet  who  claims  immortality  must  iden- 
tify himself  with  his  country ; the  verses  of 
Horace  are  the  echoes  of  the  thoughts  and 
aspirations  of  his  age.  As  we  read  the  odes 

16 


we  see  the  mighty  forces  which  were  at  work 
in  the  supreme  moment  of  Rome's  history, 
and  there  pass  before  our  eyes  in  glittering 
array  the  personages  who  with  the  world  for 
an  audience  played  their  part  in  the  great 
drama.  Caesar  and  Pompey  and  Cato  and 
Maecenas  and  Brutus  and  Cleopatra  are  all 
there,  not  as  mere  phantoms  of  history  but  as 
creatures  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  the  scenes  in 
which  they  appeared  are  reproduced  for  us 
in  the  noblest  forms  of  literature  of  which  a 
majestic  language  was  susceptible. 

The  fascination  which  Horace  exercises 
upon  men  of  letters  and  men  of  the  world 
is  perennial.  Dante  and  Voltaire,  Bossuet 
and  Pitt,  Lytton  and  La  Fontaine,  Lessing  and 
Gladstone,  have  vied  with  one  another  in 
their  fealty  to  the  Latin  lyrist.  The  true  poets 
of  every  land  aspire  to  translate  him,  and  it  is 
only  true  poets  that  dare  attempt  to  naturalise 
in  their  own  language  the  elusive  charm  of 
his  lines,  the  world  of  wisdom  in  his  words, 
and  the  sweet  cadences  of  his  metres.  To-day 
men  of  culture  in  every  country  love  to  loiter 
over  his  verses  in  their  hours  of  literary  lei- 
sure. 


l7 


Whatever  our  circumstances  of  life,  be  we 
legislators  or  warriors,  churchmen  or  men  of 
affairs,  recluses  or  leaders  of  fashion,  if  only 
there  is  within  us  the  sense  of  the  true  and 
beautiful ; whatever  the  numbers  of  our  years, 
whether  they  still  leave  us  with  the  fire  and 
hopefulness  of  youth,  or  set  us  down  amid  the 
labours  and  cares  of  mature  age,  or  speed  us, 
even,  towards  the  darkening  shadows  of  the 
grave ; whatever  the  moods  to  which  our 
soul  is  attuned,  be  they  joyous  or  sad,  be  they 
frivolous  or  serious,  be  they  such  as  to  depress 
us  nigh  unto  things  cold  and  material,  or  exalt 
us  into  regions  empyrean,  — Horace  comes  to 
us,  the  friend,  the  teacher,  the  charmer.  Hor- 
ace is,  as  no  other  can  be,  the  poet  of  human- 
ity in  all  its  phases,  — and  therein  lies  the 
secret  of  his  undying  fame  and  of  the  genial 
love  which  in  every  generation  and  under 
every  sky  attaches  to  his  memory  and  his 
verse. 

And  now,  in  the  opening  days  of  the  Twen- 
tieth Century,  the  scholarship  of  the  new 
world,  of  a world  far  removed  by  the  “ es- 
tranging seas  ” from  the  remotest  lands  that 
the  poet’s  fancy  was  able  to  descry,  sets  it- 
self forth  to  honour  Horace,  by  an  edition  of 

18 


his  “ Odes  and  Epodes,”  to  the  preparation 
of  which  the  learning  and  the  artistic  skill 
of  the  country  have  been  convoked.  It  is  a 
new  wreath  upon  the  brow  of  Horace,  in  new 
times,  from  the  hands  of  a new  people,  who 
admire  and  love  him  no  less  than  people  of 
older  lands  and  of  older  times  admired  and 
loved  him.  Truly  is  the  prophecy  fulfilled  : — 
Usque  ego  postera  crescam  laude  recens. 

John  Ireland 


l9 


THE  POET  AT  TWILIGHT 


Etched  by  W.  H.  W.  Bicknell 


From  an  original  painting  by  Howard  Pyle 


THOIJIWT  TA  T304  3HT 


.w  .h  .w  ^ 


a j y 4 q^awoH  ^ wc>v\. 


LIFE  AND  WRITINGS 


BY  CLEMENT  LAWRENCE  SMITH,  LL.  D. 

Our  knowledge  of  the  facts  of  Horace’s 
life  is  derived  in  part  from  a biography,  ap- 
pended to  certain  manuscripts  of  his  poems, 
which  has  been  shown  by  conclusive  evidence 
to  be,  in  substance,  the  life  of  the  poet  which 
Suetonius  wrote  in  his  encyclopedic  work, 
“ De  Viris  Illustribus.”  There  are  briefer  lives 
in  some  of  the  other  manuscripts,  and  scattered 
notices  in  the  scholia.  But  all  these  sources 
afford  — beyond  a few  dates  and  facts  — little 
information  that  we  do  not  already  possess,  in 
fuller  and  more  authentic  form,  in  the  poet’s 
own  writings.  To  these  we  must  go  for  an 
adequate  understanding  of  his  mind  and  char- 
acter. In  the  Satires  and  Epistles,  and  to  a 
less  degree  in  the  Epodes,  Horace  takes  the 
reader  into  his  confidence  and  speaks  of  his 
circumstances  and  feelings  with  singular  frank- 
ness. The  Odes,  too,  contain  much  biograph- 

21 


ical  material,  but  it  is  of  a kind  that  must  be 
used  with  caution.  As  a poet  Horace  claims 
the  freedom  of  his  craft,  and  frequently  puts 
himself,  for  poetical  effect,  in  situations  which 
may  perhaps  reflect  his  mode  of  thought  and 
feeling  and  even  shadow  forth  his  personal 
experiences,  but  must  not  be  taken  literally  as 
autobiography. 

Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  was  born  on  the 
8th  of  December,  b.  c.  65,  and  died  on  the 
27th  of  November,  b.  c.  8.  It  is  important 
to  observe  the  significance  of  these  dates. 
Horace’s  life  began  when  the  Romans  were 
still  living  under  the  forms  of  the  Republic ; 
when  it  closed  the  Empire  was  fully  estab- 
lished. When  our  poet  first  saw  the  light, 
Cicero  was  planning  his  canvass  for  the  consul- 
ship. His  boyhood  fell  in  the  stormy  decade 
of  the  “First  Triumvirate”  (b.  c.  60-50), 
which  formed  the  prelude  of  the  Civil  War. 
Horace  was  old  enough  to  be  interested  in  the 
later  victories  of  Caesar  in  Gaul,  and  the  de- 
struction of  Crassus  with  his  army  at  Carrhae 
in  b.  c.  53  may  well  have  made  a deep  im- 
pression on  a lad  of  twelve.  The  two  decades 
of  civil  strife  which  followed  were  experiences 
of  his  youth  and  early  manhood,  and  when 

22 


peace  came  with  the  deaths  of  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  in  b.  c.  30,  Horace  was  thirty-five 
years  old.  The  remaining  twenty-two  years 
of  his  life  belong  to  the  first  half  of  the  prin- 
cipate  of  Augustus,  the  period  of  the  growth 
and  consolidation  of  his  power  under  the 
guidance  of  his  two  great  ministers,  Agrippa 
and  Maecenas,  whose  deaths,  b.  c.  12  and  8, 
were  closely  followed  by  that  of  Horace. 

Horace’s  birthplace  was  Venusia,  a colony 
planted  for  military  purposes  in  the  Samnite 
wars,  high  up  on  the  northern  slope  of  the 
Apennine  range  in  Apulia,  near  the  Lucanian 
border.  It  stood  on  a branch  of  the  Aufidus, 
in  that  region  a swift  mountain  stream,  among 
the  wooded  hills  which  culminate  in  the  lofty 
peak  of  Mt.  Voltur.  There  the  poet’s  father 
by  shrewdness  and  thrift  had  not  only  secured 
his  own  freedom  — for  he  was  born  a slave  — 
but  had  acquired  a modest  farm  and  an  income 
which  enabled  him  to  educate  his  son.  His 
occupation  was  that  of  a coactor , that  is,  a col- 
lector of  money  — whether  of  money  due  for 
taxes  or  for  goods  sold  at  auction,  the  cor- 
rupt text  of  the  Suetonian  biography  leaves 
us  in  doubt.  It  is  supposed  by  some  that  he 
had  acted  in  this  capacity  as  a public  slave, 

23 


and  on  his  manumission  took  the  name  of 
Horatius  because  Venusia  belonged  to  the 
Horatian  tribe.  But  we  do  not  know  that 
freedmen  were  ever  so  named  ; from  the  ordi- 
nary practice  in  such  cases  we  should  assume 
that  he  had  belonged  to  a master  named  Ho- 
ratius. 

Horace  himself  was  born  free,  that  is,  he 
was  born  after  his  father’s  manumission.  His 
mother  is  nowhere  mentioned.  It  may  well 
be  that  he  inherited  from  her  his  poetic 
nature  ; but  whether  because  she  died  in  his 
infancy  — which  is  probable  — or  from  lack 
of  personal  force,  she  appears  to  have  had 
little  or  no  influence  in  moulding  his  charac- 
ter. His  father’s  influence,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  and  value,  as 
the  poet  himself  acknowledges  with  warm 
gratitude.  The  elder  Flaccus  was  a shrewd 
observer  of  men  and  manners.  Horace  was, 
it  seems,  his  only  son,  and  the  child  of  his 
later  years,  when  he  had  accumulated  a fund 
of  experience  and  practical  wisdom,  and  when 
he  was,  moreover,  in  possession  of  a compe- 
tence which  enabled  him  to  lay  aside  his  busi- 
ness and  give  his  whole  attention  to  the  train- 
ing of  his  boy.  He  naturally  knew  nothing 

24 


of  ethical  theories,  and  he  relied  little  on  pre- 
cept alone.  He  sought  to  awaken  his  son’s 
moral  perception  by  teaching  him  to  observe 
good  and  bad  in  the  world  about  him,  to  note 
the  consequences  of  virtue  and  of  vice  in  the 
actual  lives  of  men,  and  to  take  to  heart  these 
examples  and  warnings  in  guiding  his  own 
life  and  guarding  his  reputation. 

The  ethical  code  of  the  Venusian  freedman 
was  of  a roughhewn  sort.  It  was  a coarse 
sieve,  and  allowed  some  things  to  pass  which 
do  not  meet  the  test  of  our  finer  standards. 
He  claimed,  in  fact,  no  more  for  his  moral 
teaching  than  that  it  would  keep  his  son 
from  falling  into  ruinous  courses  during  that 
critical  period  when  he  was  not  yet  able  to 
“ swim  without  cork.”  But  so  far  as  it  went 
it  was  sound  and  wholesome.  And  it  was 
effective  : Horace’s  habitual  self-control  dur- 
ing the  period  of  his  life  when  we  know 
him  best,  his  dislike  of  passionate  excess  either 
of  desire  or  fear,  his  temperance  in  conduct 
and  language,  his  aversion  to  the  grosser 
forms  of  vice,  — these  were  the  fruit  of  in- 
herited traits,  fostered  and  strengthened  by 
wise  training.  To  the  same  training  Horace 
attributes  his  habit  of  critical  observation  of 

25 


social  phenomena,  which  led  him  to  write 
satire. 

Horace’s  mental  development  received  no 
less  careful  attention.  There  was  a school  at 
Venusia,  kept  by  one  Flavius  and  resorted  to 
by  the  sons  of  the  local  aristocracy,  — “ great 
lads  from  great  centurions  sprung.”  But  Hor- 
ace’s father  had  higher  views  for  his  son,  who 
had  already,  we  may  suppose,  given  promise 
of  exceptional  ability.  Anxious  to  provide 
him  with  the  best  advantages,  he  determined 
to  send  him  to  Rome,  “to  receive  the  edu- 
cation which  a knight  or  a senator  gives  to 
his  sons.”  But  unlike  a knight  or  a senator, 
the  obscure  freedman  had  no  social  connec- 
tions which  would  enable  him  to  place  his  son 
under  the  charge  of  some  family  or  friend ; 
and  rather  than  entrust  him  to  strangers  or 
slaves,  he  determined  to  leave  his  farm  and 
accompany  the  boy  in  person  to  the  city. 
Here,  too,  he  was  unremitting  in  his  watchful 
care.  Horace  has  left  us  a pleasing  picture 
of  the  devoted  father,  going  round  to  all  the 
lessons  with  his  boy,  whom  he  had  fitted  out 
with  suitable  dress  and  attendant  slaves,  so  that 
he  might  hold  up  his  head  with  the  best  of 
his  school-fellows. 


26 


Horace  was  taken  to  Rome  perhaps  in  his 
ninth  or  tenth  year,  and  remained  there  pos- 
sibly until  he  was  twenty  ; the  precise  dates 
are  not  recorded.  Of  his  teachers  only  one  is 
known  to  us,  Orbilius  Pupillus,  of  Beneven- 
tum,  an  old  cavalry  soldier  who  had  resumed 
his  books  when  his  campaigns  were  over,  and 
at  the  age  of  fifty  had  set  up  a school  in  the 
capital  in  the  year  when  Cicero  was  consul. 
He  was  a gruff  old  fellow,  with  a caustic 
tongue,  and  his  ready  resort  to  the  rod  Hor- 
ace remembered  many  years.  The  course  of 
study  which  Horace  pursued  was  presumably 
the  ordinary  course  of  the  “ grammatical  ” 
and  “ rhetorical  ” schools  of  the  day,  which 
aimed,  first,  at  a mastery  of  the  Latin  tongue, 
and,  secondly,  at  the  cultivation  of  eloquence. 
With  these  ends  in  view  the  training  — after 
the  elements  of  reading,  writing,  and  reckon- 
ing were  acquired  — was  largely  literary,  and 
consisted  mainly  in  a thorough  study  of  Latin 
and  Greek  literature.  Horace  read  Livius  An- 
dronicus  — probably  his  version  of  the  Odys- 
sey — under  the  rod  of  Orbilius,  and  became 
familiar  with  the  other  old  Roman  poets,  for 
whom  he  did  not  conceive,  or  did  not  retain, 
a very  high  admiration.  He  also  read  the 

27 


Iliad,  as  he  informs  us,  and  no  doubt  other 
Greek  classics  in  prose  and  verse  ; and  these 
kindled  in  him  a genuine  enthusiasm,  which 
kept  him  a devoted  student  of  Greek  letters, 
particularly  of  Greek  poetry,  all  his  life. 

With  this  taste  developed  by  his  studies  in 
Rome,  it  was  natural  that  Horace  should  be 
drawn  into  the  current  which  at  that  day  car- 
ried the  more  ambitious  students  to  Athens, 
in  quest  of  what  we  may  call  their  university 
training  in  the  schools  of  philosophy  there. 
Horace  attended  the  lectures  of  the  Academic 
school,  and  the  acquaintance  which  he  shows 
with  the  doctrines  of  the  other  sects  must  have 
been  acquired  at  this  time.  For  speculative 
philosophy  and  the  subtleties  of  dialectics  he 
had  little  taste.  The  Roman,  as  a rule,  felt 
the  strongest  attraction  to  philosophy  on  its 
ethical  side,  where  it  came  nearest  to  the  prac- 
tical problems  of  life ; and  in  Horace  this 
ethical  tendency  was  ingrained  and  was  pecul- 
iarly strong.  It  was  fostered  by  his  father’s 
training ; it  no  doubt  added  zest,  at  this  time, 
to  his  study  of  the  various  ethical  systems  of 
the  Greeks ; it  was  confirmed  as  his  mind 
and  character  matured,  and  impressed  itself 
strongly  on  all  his  writings,  even  his  lyrics. 

28 


In  his  later  years  he  protested  that  his  chief 
desire  was  to  put  aside  poetry  and  devote  the 
rest  of  his  days  to  the  study  of  the  philosophy 
of  life. 

In  his  philosophical  views  Horace  was,  like 
most  of  his  countrymen  who  interested  them- 
selves in  the  subject  at  all,  eclectic ; he  found 
something  to  his  taste  in  this  creed  and  in 
that,  but  declined  to  enroll  himself  as  the  dis- 
ciple of  any  school.  Of  his  religious  belief  it 
is  not  possible  to  speak  definitely,  — probably 
it  never  crystallised  into  definite  shape  in  his 
own  mind.  For  a time  he  was  a convert  to 
the  doctrine  of  Epicurus,  — probably  from 
reading  Lucretius,  whose  poem  was  published 
in  his  boyhood,  — and  believed  that  there 
were  gods,  but  that  their  serene  existence  was 
never  troubled  by  any  concern  for  the  affairs 
of  men.  In  one  of  his  odes  he  professes  to 
have  been  startled  out  of  this  “ crazy  ” creed 
by  the  actual  occurrence  of  what  the  Epicu- 
reans averred  to  be  a physical  impossibility,  — 
a clap  of  thunder  in  a clear  sky.  It  is  not 
likely  that  this  experience  had  the  importance 
in  actual  fact  which  it  appears  to  have  in  its 
lyrical  setting ; Horace’s  change  of  view  was 
a matter  of  growth.  But  it  was  real.  Other- 

29 


wise  he  would  surely  not  have  published  this 
poem ; and  there  is,  besides,  plenty  of  evi- 
dence elsewhere  in  his  works  that  in  his  ma- 
turer  years  he  recognised  a divine  providence 
and  control  in  human  affairs.  Horace’s  ethi- 
cal views,  too,  were  strongly  tinged  with  Epi- 
cureanism, but  here,  as  everywhere,  he  went 
to  no  extreme ; and,  although  he  combats  the 
Stoic  theory  and  mocks  at  their  ideal  sage,  he 
was  at  heart  in  sympathy  with  Stoic  princi- 
ples in  their  substance  and  practical  application 
to  life,  and  he  more  than  once  holds  up  their 
ideal  of  virtue  for  its  own  sake, — though 
even  virtue  itself  he  will  not  exempt  from  his 
maxim  “ nil  admirari.” 

How  far  Horace  pursued  his  study  of  the 
Greek  poets  along  with  his  philosophy  at 
Athens,  we  are  not  informed ; we  may  be  sure 
that  he  gave  them  a large  share  of  his  atten- 
tion. The  broad  and  intimate  acquaintance 
with  Greek  poetry,  which  is  the  very  life- 
blood of  his  own  poetic  achievement,  was  not 
the  acquisition  of  a few  years ; but  his  sojourn 
was  long  enough  for  the  influences  of  the 
place  to  give  a permanent  bent  to  his  literary 
taste.  One  of  Horace’s  marked  characteristics 
as  a poet  is  his  freedom  from  Alexandrinism, 

3° 


which  in  his  youth  dominated  Roman  educa- 
tion and  Roman  poetry.  Alexandrine  learn- 
ing, filtered  through  his  Roman  teachers,  fur- 
nished him  with  his  technical  outfit  as  a poet, 
with  a knowledge  of  the  forms  and  categories 
and  of  the  history  of  his  art,  and  with  the 
common  stock  of  illustrative  material,  mytho- 
logical, astrological,  and  other.  There  is  evi- 
dence also  of  his  diligent  study  of  some  of 
the  Alexandrine  poets  : he  is  indebted  to  them 
for  many  phrases  and  figures  and  turns  of 
thought.  This  is  especially  apparent  in  his 
love  poetry.  But  the  same  evidence  shows 
that  the  Alexandrine  poets  who  exerted  this 
influence  on  his  style  were  precisely  those 
who,  like  Callimachus  and  Theocritus,  were 
freest  from  the  peculiar  weakness  of  their 
school,  — the  sacrifice  of  freshness  and  good 
taste  to  formality  and  erudition.  In  the 
spirit  and  form  of  his  verse  Horace  took  as 
his  models  the  older  Greek  poets  ; and  his 
loving  study  of  these  masters  we  may  confi- 
dently date  from  his  residence  at  Athens, 
where  the  older  traditions  still  maintained 
themselves. 

The  fashion  of  sending  young  men  to  get 
the  finishing  touches  of  their  education  at 

31 


Athens  had  grown  up  with  the  generation 
into  which  Horace  was  born.  Cicero,  who 
in  his  youth  was  eager  to  grasp  every  oppor- 
tunity for  the  best  training,  did  not  visit 
Greece  at  all  until  after  he  had  entered  on  the 
practice  of  his  profession ; Cicero’s  son,  who 
was  just  of  Horace’s  age,  was  now  at  Athens 
studying  rhetoric  and  philosophy.  There,  too, 
Horace  found  a number  of  other  young  men 
of  distinguished  families,  among  them  Vale- 
rius Messala,  who  traced  his  descent  from  the 
Valerius  Poplicola  who  held  with  Brutus  the 
first  consulship  of  the  Republic. 

On  what  terms  Horace  stood  with  these 
fellow-students  we  are  left  to  conjecture  ; 
but  his  genial  nature  and  conversational  gifts, 
combined  with  tact  and  good  sense,  must 
have  drawn  many  to  him.  His  friendship 
with  Messala  and  many  closer  intimacies,  to 
which  his  poems  bear  witness,  date  no  doubt 
from  this  period.  There  was  nothing  out  of 
the  way  in  this  association  of  the  freedman’s 
son  with  the  young  nobles  in  common  studies 
and  literary  interests.  Aristocracy  of  birth 
has  never  aspired  to  monopolise  the  brain- 
work  of  the  world,  and  youth  and  good- 
fellowship  are  not  strenuous  about  social 

32 


distinctions.  In  the  next  stage  of  Horace’s 
career  he  found  his  position  very  different. 

In  September,  44  b.  c.,  six  months  after  the 
assassination  of  Julius  Caesar,  Marcus  Brutus 
came  to  Athens,  and  for  some  months,  while 
waiting  for  the  turn  of  political  events,  de- 
voted himself  to  the  schools  of  philosophy. 
His  appearance  created  no  little  sensation. 
The  Athenians,  who  lived  largely  in  the  tra- 
ditions of  their  past,  welcomed  “ the  libera- 
tor ” with  enthusiasm,  and  voted  to  set  up  his 
statue  beside  those  of  their  own  tyrannicides, 
Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton.  The  young 
Romans  were  flattered  by  the  accession  of 
so  illustrious  a fellow-student,  whose  real  inter- 
est in  philosophy  was  well  known ; and  before 
the  winter  was  over  Brutus  had  enlisted  a 
number  of  them  in  his  service  for  the  coming 
struggle  with  the  triumvirs.  Among  these  re- 
cruits was  the  young  Cicero,  who  had  already 
seen  some  service  under  Pompey.  The  most 
distinguished  adherent  was  Messala,  and  the 
least  distinguished,  certainly,  was  Horace.  It 
argues  a high  estimate  on  Brutus’  part  of 
Horace’s  intelligence  and  capacity,  that  he 
appointed  this  youth  of  one  and  twenty, 
with  neither  military  experience  nor  family 

33 


influence  to  recommend  him,  to  a place 
among  his  officers,  and  eventually  gave  him, 
as  tribune,  the  command  of  a Roman  legion. 
It  was  high  promotion  for  the  freedman’s 
son,  and  envious  tongues  were  not  slow  to 
direct  attention  to  the  fact. 

Horace  was  in  Brutus’  army  the  greater 
part  of  two  years  (b.  c.  43  and  42).  He  is 
almost  entirely  silent  about  this  experience, 
but  from  our  knowledge  of  the  movements  of 
Brutus  in  those  two  campaigns  we  may  gather 
that  it  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  visit 
various  places  in  Thessaly,  Macedonia,  and 
Thrace,  and  many  famous  cities  of  Asia  Minor, 
which  he  mentions  in  his  poems  in  a way  that 
implies  personal  acquaintance.  He  remained 
with  Brutus  to  the  end,  and  shared  the  victory 
and  subsequent  rout  at  Philippi.  The  sui- 
cide of  his  chief  at  once  absolved  him  from 
further  allegiance,  and  was  a confession  that 
the  cause  for  which  they  had  fought  was  irre- 
trievably lost.  Horace  was  fain  to  accept  the 
result,  and  while  some  of  his  friends  held  out 
and  joined  the  standard  of  Sextus  Pompeius, 
he  followed  the  example  and  advice  of  Mes- 
sala  and  made  his  submission  to  the  victors, 
who  pardoned,  or  at  least  did  not  molest  him. 

34 


It  was  not  improbably  on  his  homeward 
voyage  from  Greece  after  Philippi  that  Hor- 
ace came  near  being  shipwrecked  on  the 
dangerous  promontory  of  Palinurus,  on  the 
Lucanian  coast ; the  critical  condition  of  the 
times  may  have  been  his  motive  for  prefer- 
ring that  roundabout  way  to  the  ordinary 
route.  He  returned  to  Rome  in  a depressed 
and  bitter  mood.  His  father  was  dead.  His 
estate  had  been  swept  away  in  the  confiscation 
of  the  territory  of  Venusia.  The  outlook  was 
gloomy.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  saved 
some  money  from  his  two  campaigns,  and 
with  this  he  purchased  a clerkship  in  the 
Quaestors’  office,  which  yielded  him  a small 
income  and,  apparently,  a good  deal  of  leisure. 
Under  these  circumstances,  poor  in  purse  and 
still  poorer  in  favour,  Horace  began  life  again 
at  the  age  of  twenty-three.  He  was  thor- 
oughly cured  of  his  aspirations  for  a public 
career.  His  short  but  severe  experience  had 
taught  him  that,  however  strong  his  interest 
in  his  country’s  welfare,  he  had  no  taste  for 
the  practical  business  of  war  and  politics ; and 
he  had  had  enough  of  running  counter  to  the 
popular  prejudice  against  humble  birth  in  high 
station.  On  the  other  hand,  his  training  and 

35 


his  knowledge  of  his  own  powers  alike  pointed 
to  literature  as  the  career  most  suitable  and 
promising  for  him. 

That  Horace  had  practised  verse-writing  in 
the  course  of  his  literary  studies  might  be 
taken  for  granted.  He  confesses  that  at  one 
time  — it  was  probably  while  he  was  at 
Athens  — he  undertook  to  write  poetry  in 
Greek ; and  these  essays  were  not,  it  should 
seem,  in  the  nature  of  school  exercises,  but 
serious  efforts.  This  was  by  no  means  a 
new  thing  in  Roman  literature.  The  earliest 
Roman  annals  were  written  in  Greek,  and 
the  same  phenomenon  had  reappeared  in  the 
highly  Hellenised  culture  of  the  Ciceronian 
period,  when  Roman  writers  occasionally  used 
Greek  for  prose  or  verse,  partly  for  the  plea- 
sure of  handling  a language  of  so  much  richer 
capacity  than  their  own,  partly  to  reach  a 
wider  circle  of  appreciative  readers.  But 
Horace  did  not  persist  in  an  undertaking 
which  his  good  sense  presently  convinced  him 
was  as  futile  as  it  was  unpatriotic. 

At  the  time  when  Horace  began  his  liter- 
ary career,  Vergil,  who  was  five  years  his 
senior,  had  published  some  youthful  verses,  and 
was  beginning  to  be  known  as  a sweet  singer 


of  pastoral  scenes  by  the  publication  of  his 
earliest  Eclogues.  The  epic  poet  of  the  day 
was  Varius  Rufus,  who  won  credit  and  favour 
by  his  poem  on  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar. 
He  was  a few  years  older  than  Vergil,  who 
lived  to  rival  him  in  epos  ; but  that  was  many 
years  later.  Asinius  Pollio,  who  as  governor 
of  Cisalpine  Gaul  had  recently  won  Vergil's 
gratitude  by  timely  assistance,  and  who  was 
afterwards  eminent  as  an  orator  and  a critic 
and  patron  of  literature,  had  at  this  time  at- 
tained some  distinction  as  a writer  of  tragedy. 
Various  other  fields  were  diligently  cultivated 
by  writers  of  less  note,  or  less  known  to  us. 
Looking  over  the  ground  Horace  thought  he 
saw  a field  suited  to  his  powers  in  Lucilian 
satire,  which  Varro  Atacinus  and  some  others 
had  undertaken  to  revive,  but  in  Horace’s 
opinion  without  success. 

The  word  satura  appears  to  have  meant 
originally  a medley.  It  was  used  as  the  name 
of  a variety  performance  on  the  rude  stage  of 
early  times,  consisting  of  comic  songs  and 
stories,  with  dance  and  gesticulation,  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  pipe.  It  found  its  way 
into  literature  as  the  title  of  a collection  of 
what  we  should  call  “ miscellanies  in  verse  : ” 

37 


Ennius  (b.  c.  239-169)  employed  it  for  this 
purpose,  and  his  example  was  followed  by 
Lucilius.  The  “ Saturae  ” of  Lucilius,  who 
had  been  dead  about  sixty  years  when  Horace 
began  to  write  satire,  were  a series  of  tracts  on 
every  topic  that  it  came  into  his  head  to  dis- 
cuss, — personal,  social,  political,  philosophi- 
cal, literary,  philological.  In  form  they  were 
equally  varied,  — sometimes  didactic,  some- 
times narrative,  or  dramatic,  or  epistolary  ; and 
they  were  written  in  a variety  of  metres. 
More  than  two  thirds,  however,  of  the  thirty 
books  were  in  dactylic  hexameters,  which  Lu- 
cilius appears  to  have  finally  settled  upon  as 
most  suitable  for  his  purpose ; and  this  metre 
was  used  exclusively  by  his  successors.  And 
in  spite  of  its  heterogeneous  variety  of  sub- 
jects, there  were  two  features  which  gave  dis- 
tinctive character  to  Lucilius’  work.  One  of 
these  was  the  footing  of  personal  and  familiar 
intercourse  on  which  he  placed  himself  with 
his  reader  ; his  tone  was  the  tone  of  con- 
versation and  his  words  the  utterance  of  his 
own  mind  and  heart,  as  if  on  the  impulse  of 
the  moment.  The  other  was  that  he  entered 
on  a field  which  Roman  literature  had  not 
yet  ventured  to  tread,  but  which  thenceforth 

38 


became  the  peculiar  province  of  satura , as  it 
had  been  of  the  Old  Comedy  of  the  Greeks, 
— the  criticism  of  contemporary  manners  and 
men. 

By  inheritance  and  training  a critical  ob- 
server of  the  life  about  him,  Horace  justly 
deemed  himself  fitted  to  take  up  the  task  of 
Lucilius,  whom  he  greatly  admired  in  every- 
thing but  the  roughness  of  his  literary  work- 
manship. The  unreserved  personalities  in 
which  Lucilius  indulged  were  no  longer  per- 
missible in  Horace’s  day,  and  he  avoided  them 
except  in  a few  of  his  earlier  satires.  Politics, 
too,  were  forbidden  ground.  In  other  re- 
spects he  adopted  the  method  of  his  master, 
but  in  a kindlier  spirit  and  rarely  with  any 
exhibition  of  personal  feeling.  His  manner  is 
that  of  the  accomplished  man  of  the  world  in 
familiar  conversation,  easy  and  self-possessed, 
witty  but  never  flippant,  discussing  with  keen 
insight  and  a quick  sense  of  humour,  but  with 
the  abundant  charity  of  a man  who  knows  his 
own  shortcomings,  and  with  a ground-tone  of 
moral  earnestness,  the  various  phases  of  every- 
day life.  He  laughs  at  vice  and  folly ; but 
satire  is  essentially  didactic,  and  ridicule  is  the 
weapon  of  a serious  purpose.  Horace  never 

39 


speaks  from  the  platform,  or  with  any  assump- 
tion of  superior  virtue : he  talks  as  one  of  the 
crowd  who  has  stopped  to  reflect  on  their 
common  weaknesses,  and  he  disarms  resent- 
ment by  sometimes  turning  the  laugh  against 
himself.  There  are  some  who  esteem  these 
“ talks  ” ( sermones^y  as  he  himself  preferred  to 
call  them,  the  greatest  of  Horace’s  achieve- 
ments. Certainly  there  are  few  works  of 
classical  antiquity  in  which  literary  art  has 
brought  us  so  near  to  ancient  life.  The  sat- 
ires were  written  from  time  to  time  in  the 
decade  following  Horace’s  return  to  Rome 
(b.  c.  41—31),  and  became  more  or  less  widely 
known  before  they  were  issued  in  collected 
form.  The  collection  consisted  of  two  books, 
of  which  the  first  was  published  about  35  or 
34,  and  the  second  about  30,  b.  c. 

Horace  constructed  the  hexameter  of  his 
satires  with  some  care,  and  succeeded  in  re- 
conciling with  the  easy  conversational  tone  a 
smoothness  of  rhythm  which  marked  a great 
advance  on  the  strong  but  rugged  verses  of 
his  model  Lucilius.  But  he  hardly  cared  to 
claim  for  his  satires  the  dignity  of  poetry. 
They  are  in  their  nature,  he  protests,  and 
except  for  a certain  recurrence  of  rhythm, 

40 


mere  prose  discourse.  And  meanwhile  he 
was  trying  his  hand  at  poetry  based  on  Greek 
models,  and  was  in  fact  touched  with  the 
ambition  to  strike  out  a new  path  for  Latin 
literature  in  this  field.  His  first  effort  was  to 
reproduce  in  Latin  the  iambic  rhythm  which 
tradition  said  had  been  forged,  as  a weapon 
of  wrath,  by  Archilochus  of  Paros,  — the 
fact  being  that  Archilochus,  who  lived  in  the 
seventh  century  b.  c.,  had  developed  and  per- 
fected the  rhythm  which  had  existed  long  be- 
fore him.  The  form  which  Horace  adopted 
was  a couplet,  the  second  verse  of  which,  as  a 
sort  of  refrain,  was  called  by  metrical  writers 
epodus  (eVwSos,  adjective ; cf.  hra&eiv).  This 
term  was  later  extended  in  meaning,  so  that 
Horace’s  collection  of  seventeen  poems,  all  but 
one  composed  of  epodic  couplets,  has  come 
down  to  us  under  the  title  of  epodes  ( Epodon 
liber ).  Horace  himself  called  them  only  Iambi, 
which  expresses  their  prevailing  character  and 
is  sufficiently  accurate,  although  other  metres 
are  combined  with  the  iambic  in  some  in- 
stances. 

The  composition  of  the  Epodes  probably 
began  as  early  as  that  of  the  Satires,  possibly 
earlier,  and  was  continued  through  the  same 

4i 


period.  The  sixteenth  of  the  series,  which 
displays  at  once  remarkable  mastery  of  form 
and  immaturity  of  thought,  was  written  in 
the  first  years  after  the  poet’s  return  from 
Philippi ; the  ninth  celebrates  the  victory  at 
Actium.  The  book  was  published  about  the 
same  time  as  the  second  book  of  the  Satires, 
b.  c.  30. 

Horace  says  truly  that  he  reproduced  the 
spirit  as  well  as  the  rhythms  of  Archilochus ; 
in  some  of  his  epodes  he  has  certainly  used  the 
iambus  as  “ a weapon  of  wrath.”  In  others 
again  he  has  descended  to  a depth  of  coarse- 
ness from  which  his  later  lyrics  are,  for  the 
most  part,  happily  free.  These,  the  survivors 
perhaps  of  a larger  number  of  their  kind,  be- 
long, we  must  suppose,  to  his  earliest  efforts, 
and  tell  of  a dark  period  in  his  mental  his- 
tory, — the  first  years  after  his  return  from 
Philippi,  — when  life  went  hard  with  him, 
and  he  was  embittered  and  demoralised  by 
associations  which  later,  under  more  congenial 
influences,  he  was  able  to  throw  off.  The 
most  fortunate  of  these  influences  was  his 
acquaintance  with  Varius  and  Vergil,  who 
inspired  him  with  warm  admiration  and  re- 
gard ; and  it  was  these  friends  who  performed 

42 


for  him  the  inestimable  service  of  introducing 
him  to  Maecenas. 

Gaius  Maecenas  came  of  noble  Etruscan 
stock.  The  Cilnii,  once  a powerful  family 
of  Arretium,  were  the  most  distinguished  of 
his  ancestors,  and  Tacitus  (Ann.  VI,  11)  calls 
him  Cilnius  Maecenas ; but  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  this  was  not  his  gentile  name. 
He  was  born  on  the  13th  of  April  in  some 
year  not  far  from  70  b.  c.,  so  that  he  was 
Horace’s  senior  by  a few  years.  From  our 
earliest  knowledge  of  him  he  appears  as  the 
trusted  friend  and  confidential  minister  of  the 
triumvir  Octavian,  who  sent  him  on  several 
occasions  to  negotiate  with  Antony,  — at 
Brundisium  in  b.  c.  40,  at  Athens  in  38,  at 
Tarentum  in  37.  In  b.  c.  36,  during  his  ab- 
sence in  the  war  with  Sextus  Pompeius,  and 
again  in  31,  on  setting  out  for  the  final  strug- 
gle with  Antony,  Octavian  left  Maecenas  be- 
hind to  watch  over  Rome  and  Italy  with  the 
power,  if  not  the  name,  of  the  city  prefect  of 
regal  times.  This  was  as  near  as  Maecenas 
ever  came  to  holding  public  office.  He  stu- 
diously refrained  from  seeking  or  accepting 
political  preferment,  which  would  have  raised 
him  to  the  senatorial  order,  and  remained  all 

43 


his  life  an  untitled  “ knight.”  He  was  a man 
in  whom  the  most  opposite  qualities  appeared 
to  be  reconciled.  His  capacity  was  unques- 
tioned, and  on  occasion  he  could  display  all 
necessary  industry  and  vigour  ; but  ordinarily 
he  lived  a life  of  almost  ostentatious  indolence, 
and  was  self-indulgent  to  the  point  of  effemi- 
nacy. Devoid  of  personal  ambition,  and  appar- 
ently indifferent  to  politics,  he  was  yet  public- 
spirited  and  patriotic,  and  by  sheer  force  of 
sagacity  and  tact  he  exercised  for  many  years 
a powerful  and  a wholesome  influence  in  shap- 
ing the  policy  of  the  government.  His  self- 
indulgence  appears  to  have  been  due  to  his 
health,  which  was  always  delicate.  He  was 
subject  to  fever  and  sleeplessness,  which  in- 
creased as  he  grew  older : we  have  the  elder 
Pliny’s  word  for  it  that  in  the  last  three 
years  of  his  life  he  did  not  sleep  at  all.  Mae- 
cenas married  Terentia,  a sister  (by  adop- 
tion) of  Licinius  Murena,  who  was  exe- 
cuted for  conspiracy  against  the  emperor  in 
b.  c.  23.  She  was  a beautiful  woman,  who 
counted,  the  gossips  said,  Augustus  himself 
among  her  lovers ; and  her  husband  oscil- 
lated between  furious  jealousy  and  complete 
subjection  to  her  fascination.  He  incurred 

44 


the  emperor’s  displeasure,  when  her  brother’s 
conspiracy  was  detected,  by  letting  her  draw 
the  secret  from  him.  These  jars  produced 
no  permanent  estrangement  between  Augustus 
and  his  minister,  but  there  were  other  circum- 
stances which  inevitably  caused  Maecenas’  in- 
fluence to  wane.  When  the  rule  of  Augustus 
had  become  firmly  established  and  began  to 
take  on  the  character  of  an  hereditary  mon- 
archy, the  members  of  his  own  family  natu- 
rally came  into  greater  prominence  in  his 
councils.  Among  these  was  Agrippa,  who 
had  married  his  daughter  Julia.  Maecenas 
was  outside  the  circle,  and  his  relation  with 
his  chief  could  not  be  the  same  as  before. 

Maecenas  was  a man  of  cultivated  mind  and 
taste,  with  a genuine  appreciation  of  literature 
and  enjoyment  of  the  conversation  of  men  of 
letters.  He  even  wrote  indifferent  verses  him- 
self. But  he  showed  his  love  of  literature 
in  a much  better  way  by  bestowing  upon  it  a 
liberal  and  — what  was  more  to  the  purpose 
— a discriminating  patronage.  He  did  this  in 
part  as  a measure  of  policy ; he  saw  that  litera- 
ture might  serve  a useful  purpose  in  reconcil- 
ing the  nation  to  the  new  order  of  things.  It 
was  rare  good  fortune  for  Octavian  to  have  a 

45 


minister  who  not  only  saw  the  wisdom  of  this 
policy,  but  had  the  taste  and  the  tact  to  carry 
it  out  with  success  ; it  was  something  more 
than  good  fortune  for  Maecenas  that  he  won 
the  gratitude  and  admiration  of  the  two  great- 
est poets  of  the  age,  and  that  his  name  from 
that  day  to  this  has  been  a synonym  for  patron 
of  letters. 

Horace  was  introduced  to  Maecenas  appar- 
ently in  b.  c.  39  ; but  it  was  not  till  nine 
months  after  the  first  meeting  that  he  was 
definitely  admitted  to  his  circle.  It  was  prob- 
ably in  b.  c.  37  that  Maecenas  invited  him, 
with  Vergil  and  Varius,  to  accompany  him 
on  the  journey  to  Brundisium,  which  he  has 
humorously  described  in  the  fifth  Satire.  The 
acquaintance  between  the  two  men  ripened 
gradually  into  a warm  attachment.  Maecenas 
found  in  Horace  a man  after  his  own  heart, 
whose  society  gave  him  great  content,  and 
whose  good  sense  and  sound  moral  fibre  were 
proof  alike  against  servility  and  presumption. 
He  won  Horace’s  gratitude  by  very  substan- 
tial favours ; he  won  his  affection  by  the  tact 
and  sincerity  which  made  it  plain  that  these 
favours  were  the  gifts  of  a friend  and  not 
of  a mere  patron,  and  that  only  friendship 

46 


was  exacted  in  return.  Others  were  quick 
enough  to  point  out  the  social  inequality  of 
the  two  men,  and  Horace  was  once  more 
forced  to  hear  ill-natured  remarks  about  “ the 
freedman’s  son  ” ; but  he  comforted  himself 
with  the  knowledge  that  however  it  might 
have  been  on  the  former  occasion,  when  he 
was  tribune  in  the  army  of  Brutus,  humble 
birth  was  not  a matter  to  be  considered  against 
personal  qualities  in  the  choice  of  a friend, 
and  that  the  distinguished  favour  which  he 
enjoyed  was  not  purchased  by  any  unworthy 
compliances  on  his  part.  The  balance  of  ob- 
ligation, in  a material  point  of  view,  was  enor- 
mously against  him ; but  he  was  ready,  and 
frankly  avowed  his  readiness,  to  resign  all 
these  advantages  rather  than  surrender  his  own 
independence.  And  Maecenas  accepted  him 
on  these  terms. 

Chief  of  all  the  benefits  that  came  to  Hor- 
ace from  this  friendship  was  the  gift  of  a farm 
in  the  Sabine  hills,  which  he  received  from 
Maecenas  about  33  B.  c.,  not  long  after  the 
publication  of  the  first  book  of  Satires.  The 
precise  situation  of  this  estate  has  not  been 
determined ; but  it  lay  on  the  banks  of  the 
Digentia  (now  Licenza),  a cold  mountain 

47 


stream  that  flows  directly  south  and  joins  the 
Anio  about  eight  miles  above  Tibur  (Tivoli). 
Near  by  was  a shrine  of  the  Sabine  divinity 
Vacuna,  which  archaeologists  have  located  with 
considerable  probability  at  the  village  of  Roc- 
cagiovane,  about  three  miles  up  the  valley  on 
its  western  slope.  Behind  this  point,  within  a 
distance  of  two  or  three  miles,  there  are  moun- 
tain peaks  rising  to  a height  of  more  than 
3000  feet  above  the  sea,  one  of  which  may 
have  been  Lucretilis;  though  that  name  is 
more  commonly  supposed  to  have  designated 
the  whole  mountain  mass  lying  between  the 
Digentia  and  the  more  westerly  tributaries  of 
the  Anio,  the  highest  point  of  which,  Monte 
Gennaro  (or  Zappi),  rises  above  4000  feet.  At 
the  junction  of  the  valleys,  on  the  Anio,  was 
the  market  town  of  Varia  (Vicovaro)  where 
Horace’s  five  tenant-farmers  carried  their  pro- 
duce to  sell.  In  the  country-house,  which 
Horace  himself  appears  to  have  built  or  re- 
modelled for  his  own  use,  he  maintained  an 
establishment  of  eight  slaves,  including  pre- 
sumably the  vilicus , who  had  charge  of  the 
whole  estate.  The  environment  of  beauti- 
ful scenery,  with  abundance  of  shade,  cool 
streams,  and  pure  air  — it  was  about  2000 

48 


feet  above  the  sea-level  — made  the  place  ex- 
ceedingly attractive  to  a man  like  Horace, 
who  was  strongly  susceptible  to  the  impres- 
sions of  Nature  in  her  various  aspects.  He 
came  into  possession  of  his  Sabine  villa  when 
he  was  a little  over  thirty  years  old,  and  from 
that  time  on  he  spent  much  of  his  life  there, 
glad  to  escape  from  the  feverish  bustle  of  the 
city  to  his  mountain  retreat,  not  thirty  miles 
away,  but  completely  secluded  and  restful  to 
both  mind  and  body.  To  Maecenas’  generous 
gift  he  was  indebted  for  a good  deal  more 
than  the  mere  provision  of  an  income  which 
secured  him  against  want  for  the  rest  of  his 
days,  though  that  too  was  all-important  for  a 
man  of  letters  in  that  age. 

Through  his  intimacy  with  Maecenas  Hor- 
ace came  to  the  acquaintance  and  notice  of 
Octavian,  towards  whom  his  feelings,  in  the 
course  of  this  decade,  underwent  a complete 
change.  Like  many  of  the  followers  of  Bru- 
tus and  Cassius,  who  had  remained  quiescent 
or  hostile  during  the  harmonious  supremacy 
of  the  triumvirs,  Horace  saw  that  when  it 
became  necessary  to  choose  between  Octavian 
and  Antony,  the  best  hopes  of  the  country 
were  bound  up  with  the  success  of  the  former. 

49 


His  change  of  heart  was  no  doubt  hastened  by 
the  influence  of  Maecenas,  and  in  fact  the  pre- 
vailing influences  at  Rome  set  in  that  direc- 
tion. When  the  contest  reached  its  crisis  at 
Actium,  Horace’s  conversion  was  complete. 
He  celebrated  the  victory  and  the  death  of 
Cleopatra  — with  true  Roman  spirit  he  was 
silent  about  Antony  — with  odes  of  triumph, 
and  cordially  accepted  the  result  which  placed 
the  sole  supremacy  in  the  hands  of  the  one 
man  who  could  command  peace.  Towards 
Augustus  personally,  however,  Horace  was  not 
inspired  at  this  time,  and  probably  not  at  any 
time,  with  any  warmer  feeling  than  patriotic 
admiration  and  gratitude. 

When  Octavian  returned  to  Rome  and  cele- 
brated his  triple  triumph  in  29  B.  c.,  — the 
year  after  Vergil  completed  his  seven  years’ 
labour  on  the  Georgies,  — Horace  had  pub- 
lished his  two  books  of  Satires  and  the  Epodes. 
In  each  of  these  the  opening  poem  was  ad- 
dressed to  Maecenas,  which  was  equivalent  to 
a dedication.  Horace’s  work  in  satire  was 
not  pursued  further,  at  least  in  the  same  form. 
He  had  become  deeply  interested  in  lyrical 
composition,  and  his  success  in  the  Epodes 
had  encouraged  him  to  try  his  hand  at  more 

5° 


complicated  lyrical  metres.  He  made  careful 
studies  in  early  Greek  lyric,  taking  as  his  espe- 
cial models  and  guides  the  two  great  poets  of 
Lesbos,  Alcaeus  and  Sappho  (about  600  b.  c.). 
Just  when  Horace  began  to  write  what  we 
call  the  Odes,  but  which  he  called  simply 
Poems  [carmina),  it  is  not  possible  to  say.  In 
fact,  the  line  of  division  between  the  Epodes 
and  the  Odes  is  a somewhat  arbitrary  one,  and 
a few  poems  are  found  under  each  head  that 
might  equally  well  have  been  placed  under  the 
other.  The  earliest  of  the  odes  to  which  a 
date  can  be  assigned  with  certainty  is  I,  37, 
written  on  receiving  the  news  of  the  death 
of  Cleopatra  in  b.  c.  30.  Possibly  some  were 
written  before  this,  but  probably  not  many. 
From  this  time  on,  for  about  seven  years, 
Horace  devoted  himself  with  great  zeal  and 
industry,  and  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  every 
other  kind  of  literary  work,  to  lyrical  composi- 
tion. His  mastery  of  form  and  fine  rhythmi- 
cal sense  had  here  their  highest  opportunity, 
and  the  result  was  a body  of  lyrics  which 
in  volume  and  variety  and  in  perfection  of 
finish  was  never  equalled  in  Latin  literature 
before  or  after.  Catullus,  a generation  earlier, 
had  written  lyrics  which  in  freshness  and 

51 


spontaneity,  and  as  direct  and  unaffected  expres- 
sions of  the  poet’s  personality,  Horace  himself 
could  not  equal.  But  Catullus  had  written 
chiefly  in  the  easier  lyrical  metres,  — iambics, 
Glyconics,  and  particularly  the  Phalaecean,  his 
favourite  rhythm.  He  tried  the  Sapphic 
strophe  in  only  two  poems  — one  of  these  a 
translation  — and  the  Alcaic  not  at  all.  These 
two,  with  three  Asclepiad  strophes  which  Ca- 
tullus did  not  touch,  were  the  rhythms  that 
Horace  developed  most  successfully,  and,  after 
many  experiments  with  other  forms,  came  to 
use  almost  exclusively.  He  also  worked  in 
accordance  with  strict  metrical  theories,  for- 
mulated probably  by  the  Roman  philologians 
of  the  time,  and  not  by  Horace  himself, 
whereas  Catullus  had  allowed  himself  the  full 
liberty  of  his  Greek  models  as  he  found  them, 
so  that  his  verses  sometimes,  to  the  ears  of 
later  critics,  had  a touch  of  harshness.  It  was 
not  unnatural  that  Horace  should  regard  his 
own  achievement,  wrought  out  with  much 
study  and  labour,  as  the  first  adequate  and  suc- 
cessful adaptation  of  the  Lesbian  rhythms  to 
the  Latin  language,  in  comparison  with  which 
the  slighter  efforts  of  Catullus  might  be 
deemed  to  have  gone,  in  point  of  artistic 

52 


workmanship,  little  beyond  the  point  he  had 
himself  reached  in  his  Epodes.  And  his 
claim,  in  this  limited  sense,  must  be  allowed. 
But  it  is  to  be  wished  that  he  had  accorded  to 
the  genius  of  his  predecessor  in  lyric  the  same 
generous  recognition  which  he  gave  to  that 
of  Lucilius  in  satire. 

Horace’s  Odes,  many  of  which  are  ad- 
dressed to  one  or  another  of  his  friends,  were 
privately  read  and  circulated  long  before  they 
were  published  in  collected  form.  The  first 
publication,  which  embraced  three  books, 
dedicated  in  a fitting  introductory  ode  to 
Maecenas,  took  place,  according  to  almost 
conclusive  internal  evidence,  in  b.  c.  23,  when 
Horace  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-two.  It 
was  the  gathered  fruits  of  the  best  years  of 
his  life,  when  his  mind  had  attained  its  full 
maturity  and  its  spirit  had  not  yet  lost  its 
freshness.  The  collection  is  arranged  with 
some  reference  to  the  chronological  order  of 
composition,  but  with  more  to  variety  of  sub- 
ject and  pleasing  sequence  of  rhythms.  The 
odes  range  in  quality  from  mere  studies  or  ver- 
sions from  the  Greek  to  products  of  the  poet’s 
matured  skill  and  poems  in  which  motive  and 
thought  are  wholly  Roman.  Horace  gave  his 

53 


work  to  the  world  with  the  undisguised  assur- 
ance of  its  immortality  and  his  own.  It  did 
not  immediately  silence  his  detractors ; but  it 
won  its  way  surely,  and  he  did  not  have  to  wait 
many  years  for  a general  verdict  of  approval 
from  the  reading  public. 

With  this  achievement  Horace’s  ambition 
to  make  for  himself  a unique  place  in  Roman 
literature  was  satisfied,  or  his  lyric  impulse  was 
spent ; at  any  rate  he  wrote  no  more  odes  for 
some  years.  His  old  propensity  for  the  study 
of  life  reasserted  itself  and  found  expression  in 
a new  series  of  sermones , as  he  calls  them,  indi- 
cating their  close  resemblance  in  subject  and 
method,  as  they  were  identical  in  metre,  with 
the  Satires.  In  form  they  were  Epistles,  and 
this  is  the  title  under  which  they  have  come 
down  to  us.  Some  are  letters  in  fact  as  well 
as  in  form,  relating  to  personal  matters,  — one 
is  a letter  of  introduction.  Others  contain 
some  admixture  of  personal  communication, 
while  in  many  the  insertion  of  a name  is  no 
more  than  a compliment  or  serves  only  to  lend 
a certain  personal  interest  to  the  discourse. 
It  was  a practice  to  which  he  had  become 
habituated  in  the  Odes,  the  influence  of  which 
on  the  Epistles  is  further  apparent  in  a more 

54 


finished  rhythm  and  a more  compact  and  sen- 
tentious style  than  he  had  attained  in  the  Sat- 
ires. The  first  series  of  Epistles  was  written 
in  the  years  immediately  following  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Odes,  and  was  published  in  b.  c. 
20  or  19.  The  book,  like  its  predecessors, 
was  dedicated  to  Maecenas. 

In  the  epilogue  of  this  first  book  of  Epis- 
tles Horace  has  left  a brief  sketch  of  his  own 
person  and  temper  at  the  age  of  forty-four: 
“ short  of  stature,  prematurely  gray,  quick  to 
take  offence,  but  quickly  appeased.”  He  was 
stout  as  well  as  short ; but  in  his  younger  days, 
with  black  hair  and  the  low  forehead  which 
the  Romans  admired,  and  an  agreeable  voice 
and  smile,  he  was  personally  far  from  unattrac- 
tive. He  enjoyed  good  health  in  his  youth 
except  that  he  was  troubled  with  an  affection 
of  the  eyes.  But  as  he  grew  older  his  health 
began  to  fail,  and  he  found  it  necessary  to 
guard  it  carefully.  In  spite  of  the  friendly 
reproaches  of  Maecenas,  he  spent  a good  part 
of  the  year  away  from  the  city,  among  the 
hills  at  his  villa  or  at  Tibur  or  Praeneste,  or 
on  the  seashore  at  Baiae  or  Tarentum. 

He  never  married,  nor  was  he  ever  taken 
possession  of  by  an  overmastering  passion, 

55 


like  his  friend  Tibullus  and  the  other  elegiac 
poets.  Among  all  the  feminine  names  that 
occur  in  his  lighter  odes  only  one  appears 
to  be  real,  — that  of  Cinara,  of  whom  he 
speaks  only  after  her  early  death.  The  Lydias 
and  Lalages,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  Greek 
ladies  who  figure  in  his  love  poems,  are  crea- 
tures of  his  fancy,  or  of  the  fancy  of  some 
Greek  poet  before  him  ; and  if,  as  is  no  doubt 
to  some  extent  true,  the  poems  reflect  the 
poet’s  own  experiences,  they  also  show  how 
lightly  these  experiences  touched  him.  Hor- 
ace was  not  of  a temperament  to  make  a 
serious  business  of  love ; and  his  artistic  delin- 
eations of  it  are  pretty,  but  they  have  not  the 
ring  of  genuineness  and  true  passion.  Some- 
thing of  the  same  sort  must  be  said  of  his  con- 
vivial odes.  They  must  be  taken  as  artistic 
productions,  not  as  self-portraiture.  Horace 
enjoyed  good  wine  and  was  very  sociable  by 
disposition,  and  he  no  doubt  often  found  him- 
self, especially  in  his  younger  days,  in  boister- 
ous company  ; but  by  his  whole  nature  and 
training  excess  of  all  kinds  was  distasteful  to 
him,  and  it  is  impossible  not  to  believe  that 
his  strong  self-control  rarely  failed  to  assert 
itself  here.  The  odes  in  which  he  enjoins 

56 


moderation  in  the  use  of  wine  reflect  not  only 
his  rule  but,  we  may  confidently  believe,  his 
habitual  practice. 

In  the  year  17  b.  c.  Horace’s  eminence  as  a 
poet  received  the  stamp  of  official  recognition 
in  his  appointment  to  write  a hymn  to  be 
sung  at  the  Secular  Games  which  Augustus 
celebrated  in  that  year.  His  services  as  poet 
laureate  were  further  called  upon  a few  years 
later  to  celebrate  in  two  odes  the  exploits  of 
the  Emperor’s  stepsons,  Tiberius  and  Drusus 
Nero,  who  had  gained  important  successes 
against  some  of  the  Alpine  tribes.  In  the 
mean  time  his  reawakened  lyrical  activity  had 
produced  other  odes,  and  in  b.  c.  13,  or  per- 
haps a little  later,  he  gathered  these  together 
and  added  a fourth  book  to  the  three  already 
published.  This  was  done,  Suetonius  tells  us, 
to  gratify  the  emperor,  who  wished  the  odes 
in  honour  of  his  stepsons  to  have  a permanent 
place  in  Horace’s  works.  The  “ Carmen  Sae- 
culare”  was  not  included  in  this  book,  but 
has  been  preserved  separately. 

The  fourth  book  of  the  Odes,  unlike  all  of 
the  poet’s  previous  publications,  was  not  dedi- 
cated to  Maecenas,  and  this  circumstance  has 
given  rise  to  the  suspicion  that  Horace  was 

57 


guilty  of  neglecting  his  old  friend,  now  that 
he  had  himself  come  into  the  sunshine  of 
court  favour,  while  his  benefactor  had  with- 
drawn into  the  background,  or  was  even  under 
a cloud.  But  there  is  no  sufficient  ground  for 
such  an  aspersion,  and  it  is  contradicted  by 
what  we  know  of  Horace’s  character  and  his 
ideals  of  life.  Horace  had  long  before  this 
time  come  into  entire  sympathy,  politically, 
with  the  government  of  Augustus.  The  em- 
peror was  fully  alive  to  the  value  of  such  an 
ally,  and  was  ready  to  bestow  upon  him  social 
favours  and  rewards  of  a more  substantial  sort. 
Both  the  one  and  the  other  were  no  doubt 
agreeable  enough  to  the  poet,  and  Horace 
was  not  the  man  to  withhold  the  one  favour 
he  could  bestow  in  return,  — the  service  of 
his  muse.  There  is  nothing  to  show  that  his 
relations  with  the  court  went  beyond  this 
interchange  of  civilities.  Horace  had  already 
won  the  prizes  of  life  that  he  most  valued,  and 
court  favour  could  add  nothing  that  he  really 
cared  for.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence  of  a 
close  friendship  between  the  poet  and  the 
emperor.  The  warmest  expression  of  Hor- 
ace’s feeling  towards  Augustus  is  in  the  fifth 
ode  of  the  fourth  book ; but  it  is  the  warmth 


of  loyal  gratitude  to  the  author  of  his  coun- 
try’s peace,  and  not  at  all  of  personal  affection. 
On  the  other  hand  we  are  told  that  the  em- 
peror’s advances  towards  a closer  relation,  in 
inviting  the  poet  to  become  his  private  secre- 
tary, were  coldly  received  and  the  appoint- 
ment was  declined.  As  to  the  new  book  of 
lyrics,  Horace’s  unerring  tact  would  forbid 
him  to  dedicate  to  Maecenas  a work  that  he 
had  published  at  the  request  of  the  emperor ; 
the  significant  fact  is  that  it  is  not  dedicated  to 
Augustus.  Of  his  loyalty  to  Maecenas,  which 
we  should  otherwise  have  no  right  to  question, 
he  reminds  us  in  the  eleventh  ode  ; and  of 
Maecenas’  undiminished  affection  for  the  poet 
we  have  striking  evidence  in  his  dying  mes- 
sage to  the  emperor,  recorded  by  Suetonius : 
“Horati  Flacci  ut  mei  esto  memor.” 

Suetonius  further  tells  us  that  Augustus  re- 
proached Horace  not  only  for  slighting  his 
friendly  advances,  but  for  having  left  him, 
among  so  many  friends  addressed  in  his  “ ser- 
mones,”  conspicuous  by  his  absence  ; and  that 
Horace  absolved  himself  from  this  reproach 
by  composing  the  poem  which  now  stands 
at  the  head  of  the  second  book  of  Epistles. 
It  is,  in  form,  an  epistle  to  the  Emperor ; 

59 


in  substance  a review  of  Latin  poetry,  with  a 
defence  of  the  modern  school,  of  which  Varius 
and  Vergil  and  Horace  himself  were  the  fore- 
most representatives,  and  with  which  the  name 
of  Augustus  was  destined  to  be  permanently 
associated,  against  the  disparagement  of  con- 
servative critics  and  their  indiscriminate  vene- 
ration of  the  old  Roman  poets.  The  second 
poem  of  this  collection,  an  epistle  to  a young 
friend  and  man  of  letters,  Julius  Florus,  is  also 
mainly  devoted  to  literary  matters,  and  is 
especially  interesting  for  its  many  allusions  to 
Horace’s  own  literary  career.  Its  general  pur- 
port is  that  he  has  now  come  to  a time  of  life 
when  he  must  put  aside  poetry  with  other 
amusements  of  youth,  and  address  himself  to 
the  “ rhythms  and  harmonies  of  real  life.”  For 
this  reason  its  composition  is  assigned  with 
great  probability  to  the  period  immediately 
following  the  publication  of  the  first  book  of 
the  Epistles,  when  Horace’s  lyrical  muse  was 
still  silent,  — say  b.  c.  19  or  18.  The  epistle 
to  Augustus,  on  the  other  hand,  was  probably 
written  at  least  as  late  as  b.  c.  14. 

These  two  epistles  are  followed  in  modern 
editions  by  the  longest  of  Horace’s  poems 
(476  hexameters),  and  the  one  that  approaches 

60 


nearest  to  the  character  of  a formal  treatise. 
It  is  largely  didactic,  setting  forth  with  much 
detail  of  precept  and  illustration  the  correct 
principles  of  poetry  as  an  art ; and  as  early  as 
the  first  century  it  was  known  under  the  title 
of  “ Ars  Poetica  ” or  “ De  Arte  Poetica  liber.” 
It  is,  nevertheless,  written  in  the  form,  and  to 
a considerable  extent  preserves  the  character 
and  tone,  of  an  epistle,  being  addressed  to  three 
friends,  a father  and  two  sons,  of  the  Piso 
family,  and  ostensibly  designed  for  the  special 
benefit  of  the  elder  of  the  two  young  men, 
who  had  literary  aspirations.  It  is,  moreover, 
for  a formal  treatise,  very  incomplete ; it  deals 
with  only  one  branch  of  poetry  — the  drama 
— with  any  degree  of  thoroughness,  touching 
on  the  rest  lightly  or  not  at  all.  It  seems 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  somewhat  pre- 
tentious title  “ Ars  Poetica  ” did  not  originate 
with  Horace  himself,  but  was  given  to  the 
poem  later,  when  it  was  issued  separately, 
either  for  educational  purposes  or  as  material 
for  learned  commentary.  The  date  of  its 
composition  is  in  dispute.  Some  place  it  as 
early  as  the  first  book  of  the  Epistles,  but  the 
better  view  appears  to  be  that  it  was  written 
in  the  last  years  of  the  poet’s  life. 

61 


Of  Horace’s  personal  history  in  these  last 
years  we  have  no  record.  His  health,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  long  been  precarious,  and  he 
had  not  yet  completed  his  fifty-seventh  year 
when  he  died,  in  the  latter  part  of  Novem- 
ber, b.  c.  8.  He  was  buried  on  the  Esqui- 
line,  not  far  from  the  tomb  of  Maecenas,  who 
had  passed  away  only  a few  months  before 
him. 

The  favour  which  Horace  had  won  from  the 
best  minds  of  his  own  time  has  been  confirmed 
by  the  permanent  verdict  of  posterity.  His 
works  at  once  took  their  place  among  the 
classics  of  Latin  literature.  By  the  beginning 
of  the  second  century,  as  we  know  definitely 
from  Juvenal,  and  undoubtedly  long  before 
(see  Quint.  I,  8,  6),  they  were  used  as  school- 
books, and  thus  became  a part  of  the  literary 
outfit  of  the  educated  Roman.  They  contin- 
ued to  be  read  to  some  extent  through  the 
middle  ages,  and  since  the  revival  of  letters 
their  popularity  has  been  steadily  maintained. 
Perhaps  no  ancient  writer  has  won  a warmer 
place  in  the  personal  regard  of  modern  men, 
— and  not  only  men  of  books,  but  men  of 
affairs ; for  the  secret  of  his  power  is  not 
merely,  or  perhaps  so  much,  in  the  unrivalled 

62 


mastery  of  language  and  rhythm  which  lends 
such  charm  to  his  lyric  poems,  — still  less  in 
the  force  of  poetical  genius,  in  which  his 
greatness  does  not  pass  unchallenged,  but  rather 
in  the  character  which  shines  through  his 
verses,  of  the  keen  but  kindly,  urbane,  wise, 
genial  observer  of  life. 

Horace’s  poems  became  early  the  subject 
of  learned  criticism  and  interpretation.  The 
oldest  commentary  that  has  come  down  to  us 
is  that  of  Pomponius  Porphyrio,  who  is  sup- 
posed to  have  written  in  the  fourth  century, 
perhaps  earlier.  At  any  rate,  he  lived  at  a 
time  when  the  old  Roman  pagan  customs  had 
not  yet  died  out,  and  he  had  access  to  still 
older  authorities  which  are  now  lost ; so  that 
his  work  is  of  great  value  to  us.  We  also 
have  a collection  of  scholia  under  the  name 
of  Helenius  Aero,  a distinguished  gramma- 
rian who  lived  perhaps  a century  before  Por- 
phyrio ; but  although  Aero  unquestionably 
wrote  a commentary  on  Horace,  the  one  which 
now  bears  his  name  is  a composite  production, 
made  up  at  a much  later  date  by  one  or  more 
unknown  writers,  who  quote  liberally  from 
Porphyrio. 

If  we  may  take  the  word  of  Jacques  de 

63 


Crusque  (better  known  by  his  Latinised  name, 
Cruquius),  professor  at  Bruges  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  oldest  manu- 
script of  Horace  known  to  exist  in  modern 
times  was  preserved  in  the  monastery  of  St. 
Peter  at  Blankenberg  (Mons  Blandinius),  near 
Ghent,  and  presumably  perished  in  the  fire 
which  consumed  that  institution  in  1566.  It 
was  one  of  four  codices  which  Cruquius  had 
borrowed  from  the  monastery  and  collated  for 
his  edition  of  Horace,  which  he  first  published 
in  complete  form  in  1578.  Although,  there- 
fore, these  Blandinian  manuscripts  are  them- 
selves lost,  we  have  in  the  edition  of  Cruquius 
a considerable  number  of  readings  from  them  ; 
and  some  of  these  are  of  a very  striking  char- 
acter. Cruquius  regarded  the  manuscripts  as 
of  great  value;  three  of  them  he  assigned  to 
the  ninth  century,  while  the  other,  which 
he  called  “ vetustissimus,”  he  thought  might 
possibly  date  from  the  seventh.  We  have  no 
means  of  revising  this  estimate.  Keller  and 
Holder,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  the  full- 
est existing  critical  apparatus  of  Horace,  ques- 
tion the  accuracy  and  even  the  good  faith  of 
Cruquius,  and  set  little  value  on  his  manu- 
scripts. The  majority  of  Horatian  scholars, 

64 


however,  dissent  from  this  view  and  acquit 
Cruquius  of  any  worse  offence  than  careless- 
ness, while  the  “ Blandinius  Vetustissimus  ” 
is  justly  held  to  be  of  exceptional  importance 
both  on  account  of  the  excellence  of  some  of 
its  peculiar  readings  and  because  it  represents 
a tradition  in  large  measure  independent  of  the 
great  mass  of  Horatian  manuscripts.  Cru- 
quius also  published  in  his  edition  a collection 
of  scholia  from  his  Blandinian  manuscripts, 
the  unknown  writer  or  writers  of  which  are 
commonly  quoted  as  “ Commentator  Cruquia- 
nus.”  They  are  of  no  great  value,  being 
evidently  derived,  for  the  most  part,  from 
Aero  and  Porphyrio. 

The  extant  manuscripts  of  Horace,  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  in  number,  range  in 
date  from  the  eighth  or  ninth  to  the  fifteenth 
century.  The  oldest  is  one  now  in  the  pub- 
lic library  at  Berne,  written  by  a Scotch  or 
Irish  monk  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighth  or 
early  in  the  ninth  century.  We  have  nearly 
twenty  in  all  which  appear  to  have  been  writ- 
ten before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century.  All 
of  the  manuscripts  (except  one  at  Gotha,  which 
appears  to  be  derived  from  the  Blandinian  recen- 
sion) come  from  a common  archetype,  which 


Keller  thinks  may  have  been  written  as  early  as 
the  first  or  second  century.  No  satisfactory 
classification  has  yet  been  discovered,  which 
shall  enable  us  to  decide  on  disputed  readings 
by  the  weight  of  manuscript  testimony  ; nor 
is  it  probable  that  the  relations  of  the  manu- 
scripts to  one  another  can  ever  be  sufficiently 
made  out  to  establish  such  a classification. 
Owing  to  the  practice  in  which  copyists  and 
revisers  often  indulged,  of  comparing  their 
codex  with  one  or  more  others,  and  borrow- 
ing readings  from  these  at  their  discretion,  the 
lines  of  tradition  have  become  so  confused  that 
it  is  probably  no  longer  possible  to  separate 
them.  This  appears  in  Keller’s  attempted 
classification,  in  which  an  important  manu- 
script will  be  found  now  in  one  class,  now  in 
another.  Keller  sets  up  three  classes,  and  in 
general  accepts  the  united  testimony  of  two 
against  the  remaining  one.  His  classes  II  and 
III  may  be  said  to  be  fairly  made  out,  though 
their  value  is  much  impaired  by  the  vacilla- 
tion of  individual  manuscripts.  The  case  for 
his  Class  I is  by  no  means  so  clear.  The  seri- 
ous problems  of  Horatian  textual  criticism 
involve,  as  a rule,  the  choice  between  two 
(seldom  three)  variants,  each  resting  on  good, 

66 


but  not  conclusive,  manuscript  support ; and 
the  decision  cannot  be  reached  by  any  balan- 
cing of  authorities,  but  calls  for  the  exercise 
of  sound  judgment,  trained  by  careful  study 
of  the  poet’s  mode  of  thought  and  habit  of 
expression. 


67 


READING  FROM  HOMER 


Rome  bred  me  first,  she  taught  me  Grammar  Rules, 

And  all  the  little  Authors  read  in  Schools. 

A little  more  than  this  learn’d  Athens  shew’d. 

And  taught  me  how  to  separate  Bad  from  Good. 

— Hor.  Epist.  2,  Lib.  ii. 


Etching  by  W.  H.  W.  BlC KNELL 
From  the  famous  painting  by  Alma  Tadema 


l 


H3MOH  MOfl3  0tfICIA3H 


«aalu.fl  iBmmBiO  am  jrignBi  aria  tl8ift  am  baid  amo^ 
.aloorioS  ni  beai  eiorijuA  afnil  aril  IIb  bnA 
« tb’warie  anariiA  b'mBal  airii  nfirfi  aiom  alnil  A 

.booO  moil  bfi8  alBiBqaa  ol  v/ori  am  irfguBl  bnA 
,ii  .aiJ  <s  .TenS  .boH  — 


jj3V1^di8  .W  .H  ,W  ^ & 


) 


READING  FROM  HOMER 


Rome  bred  me  first,  she  taught  me  Grammar  Rules, 
And  all  the  little  Authors  read  in  Schools. 

A little  more  than  this  learn’ d Athens  shew’d, 

And  taught  me  how  to  separate  Bad  from  Good. 

— Hor.  Epist.  2,  Lib. 


Etching  by  W.  H.  W.  Bicknell 
From  the  famous  painting  by  Alma  Tadema 


33MOH  MOH3  OVHQA3 H 


«aal u3  iBmmBiO  am  jrigi/BJ  aria  t)aiR  am  baid  amo^ 
.alooriaB  ni  bsai  aiorimA  aluil  arij  Us  bnA 
tb'waria  anarilA  b'mBal  airij  nsrij  aiom  abiil  A 
.booO  mo-R  bfi9  alBisqaa  oJ  wori  am  jriguBl  bnA 
ii  .aid  ts  .T2iq3  .boH  — 


jjavi^ioiS  .W  .H  .W  ^ 


Av  it J/y 


HORACE  AND  HIS  TRANSLATORS 


WRITTEN  BY  THE  LATE  JAMES  HANNAY  FOR  THE 
LONDON  QUARTERLY  REVIEW 

Our  English  lovers  of  the  wise  and  pleasant 
Venusian  continue  to  attempt  translating  him 
so  pertinaciously  that  we  are  fairly  provoked 
into  inquiring  what  success  has  yet  been  at- 
tained in  the  object  by  our  national  literature, 
and  whether  there  are  any  prospects  of  a per- 
fectly satisfactory  achievement  of  the  nice  and 
difficult  task  ? We  shall  not  apply  the  prosaic 
test  of  utility  in  the  matter,  for  we  do  not 
estimate  roses  by  their  value  for  medicinal 
purposes,  and  a Horace  in  English,  like  Hor- 
ace in  Latin,  would  be  something  beyond 
price.  But  even  on  the  ground  of  utility  there 
is  a good  deal  to  say.  Who  knows  whether  a 
vernacular  Horace  may  not  yet  be  required 
for  a reformed  House  of  Commons  ? Who 
knows  what  would  be  the  effect  of  the  diffu- 
sion of  perfectly  graceful  and  accurate  versions 
of  the  ancients  upon  a generation  which 

69 


threatens  to  respect  nothing  older  than  1832  ? 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  inquiry  becomes 
important  as  well  as  interesting ; and  the  fact 
that  our  latest  translator  is  a Peer  not  unknown 
in  public  life  acquires  a new  significance.  The 
truth  is,  that  we  cannot  help  looking*  upon 
Horace  as  a kind  of  honorary  member  (along 
with  other  ancients)  of  the  British  constitution. 
He  and  his  friends  have  helped  to  form  our 
statesmen,  polish  our  oratory,  and  point  our 
conversation  for  many  ages,  and  that  Lord 
Ravensworth  should  be  his  translator  is  a fact 
which  we  are  still  happy  to  be  able  to  char- 
acterise as  English.  Sir  Robert  Peel  loved  the 
little  Roman  ; Lord  Plunket  learned  him  by 
heart  ; Burke  quoted  him  ; Lord  North 
punned  upon  him ; Warren  Hastings  rendered 
one  of  his  most  famous  odes.  We  shall  see 
presently  that  there  are  noblemen,  diploma- 
tists, statesmen,  and  bishops,  as  well  as  poets 
and  scholars,  among  those  who  have  endeav- 
oured to  naturalise  him  in  our  tongue ; so 
that  the  task  can  hardly  be  called  one  of  mere 
literature  only,  and  before  we  begin  to  exam- 
ine it  specially  in  that  light  we  feel  tempted 
to  say  a few  words  on  the  historical  impor- 
tance of  Horace  himself. 

7° 


There  is  nothing  more  curious  than  the 
transition  by  which  classical  literature  has 
passed  from  a revolutionary  into  a conserva- 
tive influence.  It  was  once  dangerous  to  be 
suspected  of  Greek,  and  the  elderly  gentlemen 
of  the  fifteenth  century  did  not  half  like  a 
young  fellow  who  showed  a marked  turn  for 
Latin  prose.  When  Horace  appeared  from 
the  presses  of  Italy,  — as  if  the  Esquiline  had 
given  up  its  dead,  — he,  the  epicurean  and 
the  admirer  of  Augustus,  began  his  modern 
career  in  the  capacity  of  a reformer  ! He 
taught  Erasmus  to  laugh  at  monks,  to  ridicule 
old  feudal  funerals,  to  treat  the  grotesque 
figures  of  saints  with  little  more  reverence 
than  he  himself  had  shown  to  the  images  of 
Priapus ; and  a corresponding  influence  was 
exercised  by  the  other  comic  writers  of  anti- 
quity all  over  Europe.  Rabelais  in  France, 
Buchanan  in  Scotland,  Skelton  in  England, 
were  all  men  suckled  on  the  wolf  of  Roman 
satire  ; and  cardinals  and  friars,  tyrants  and 
hypocrites,  were  pelted  with  weapons  such  as 
had  once  assailed  Domitian,  — Tigellinus,  — 
bloated  libertini  and  sham  Stoics.  Horace,  less 
direct  and  violent  than  other  satirists,  proved 
also  to  have  an  element  capable  of  wider 

. 71 


employment  in  the  world.  His  happy  sayings 
obtained  the  currency  of  proverbs,  and  the 
authority  of  oracles.  The  world  has  long 
forgotten  that  he  and  his  band  of  ancient 
brothers  were  once  thought  dangerous  to 
churches  and  thrones.  They  are  now  the 
cherished  darlings  of  spiritual  and  temporal 
potentates,  loved  (strange  to  say)  least  by  those 
political  parties  whose  existence  in  Europe 
they  helped  to  make  possible!  But  if  we 
recognise  the  ingratitude  of  “ Liberalism  ” 
when  it  assails  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek, 
let  us  be  thankful  that  we  now  know  what 
Latin  and  Greek  really  teach.  The  old  abbots, 
who  hated  the  new  studies,  may  sleep  in 
peace.  No  man  now  who  knows  who  Brutus 
was  is  likely  to  imitate  him.  We  study  our 
own  demagogues  in  Aristotle,  and  laugh  at 
them  in  Aristophanes.  Republics  which  re- 
mained great  or  independent  only  as  long  as 
they  remained  historic  and  aristocratic  present 
little  for  the  imitation  of  rebellious  cobblers. 
Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity  stare  when 
brought  into  contact  with  societies  which 
based  all  politics  on  the  eternal  necessity  of 
slavery,  and  made  the  hatred  of  foreigners  a 
part  of  public  virtue.  What  fluctuations  of 

72 


opinion  and  varieties  of  view  has  the  popu- 
larity of  Horace  survived ! How  hopeless 
seem  the  prospects  of  our  modern  reputations, 
when  we  contemplate  the  thousands  of  edi- 
tions and  versions  which  maintain  and  diffuse 
his  fame ! 

But  let  us  now  (for  he  is  not  before  us 
every  day)  take  a bird's-eye  view  of  the  more 
recent  varieties  of  Horatian  opinion.  Every 
ancient  has  a modern  literature  of  his  own, 
and  rises  and  falls  in  popular  favour,  as  the 
years  roll  by,  like  a living  writer.  Horace, 
for  instance,  was  not  so  early  translated  in 
England  as  Vergil  and  others,  nor  — if  we 
may  venture  on  so  decided  a generalisation  — 
was  he  so  much  valued  in  the  Elizabeth  pe- 
riod. He  rose  in  favour  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  acquired  a decided  accession  of 
popularity  when  Pope  published  the  “ Imita- 
tions." The  great  intellectual  movement 
which  followed  the  French  Revolution  was 
not  favourable  to  him ; he  was  assailed  heavily 
in  Germany,  and  Catullus  came  more  into 
fashion. 

Niebuhr  was  a great  admirer  of  Catullus, 
but  he  took  care  that  depreciation  of  the  later 
author  should  not  go  too  far,  and  we  find  him 

73 


writing  thus  on  the  subject  in  his  celebrated 
“ Letter  to  a Young  Philologer  ” : — 

“ Horace’s  Odes  may  also  benefit  the  young 
as  a standard  style  formed  upon  the  Greek 
model,  and  it  is  a pity  that  a contempt  for 
them  has  spread  which  is  only  allowable  and 
not  arrogant  in  the  case  of  a very  small  num- 
ber of  masters  in  philology.” 

Since  that  time  the  tide  has  turned  again. 
Abroad  there  have  been  several  excellent  edi- 
tions of  him  published ; at  home,  besides  the 
“ Horatius  Restitutus”  of  Dr.  Tate  and  the 
edition  of  Milman,  there  have  been  more 
translations  of  some  literary  pretension  than 
it  would  be  easy  to  match  in  any  other  given 
number  of  previous  years.  A reaction  has  set 
in.  Just  as  the  Queen  Anne’s  men  and  their 
successors  of  the  last  century  have  recovered 
from  the  depression  which  they  experienced 
during  the  first  ascendancy  of  Wordsworth 
and  Coleridge,  there  is  a disposition  to  think 
more  kindly  and  highly  of  a writer  whose 
cause  is  very  much  the  same.  A liberal 
compromise  has  been  entered  into  among  the 
men  of  letters  who  discuss  Horatian  ques- 
tions. How  far  was  he  really  a poet  ? How 
far  was  he  noble  as  a man  ? These  points  are 

74 


debated  without  any  absurd  affectation  of  “ con- 
tempt ; ” and  on  them,  as  on  other  contro- 
versies regarding  Horace’s  life  and  writings, 
definite  grounds  of  agreement  begin  to  disclose 
themselves.  We  have  remarked  the  gradual 
rise  of  somewhat  new  conclusions  about  him ; 
but  these  are  accompanied  everywhere  with  a 
mixture  of  affection  and  admiration  which 
show  that  he  is  likely  to  survive  the  tests  of 
this  generation  as  triumphantly  as  he  has 
those  of  any  preceding  one. 

If,  for  example,  we  take  the  old  question 
— Was  Horace  a poet?  — nobody  would  now 
venture  to  answer  it  in  the  merely  contemptu- 
ous negative  of  a sixth-rate  imitator  of  Keats. 
On  the  other  hand,  who  would  assert  that 
his  genius  was  as  naturally  poetic  as  that  of 
Shakespeare  or  Sophocles  ? A good  test  in 
such  cases  is  to  ask  whether  the  word  “ poet  ” 
would  be  a sufficient  description  for  a man, 
without  any  other ; whether  the  poetic  ele- 
ment has  the  mastery  in  his  mind  and  style  ? 
Now,  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  this  was  the 
case  with  Horace,  whose  earliest  works  were 
satires,  whose  latest  works  are  epistles,  and 
who  is  more  original,  beyond  all  question,  in 
these,  than  in  the  strictly  poetic  compositions 

75 


which  he  wrote  for  the  lyre.  To  say,  indeed, 
that  he  was  more  original  in  these  is  only  to 
say  that  he  was  a Roman.  The  Roman 
satire  stands  by  itself,  and  is  a native  produc- 
tion of  the  Italian  soil.  It  is  not  like  the 
Archilochian  satires  which  Horace  imitated 
in  the  “ Epodes.”  It  is  not  like  the  old  Com- 
edy represented  by  Aristophanes.  It  is  a 
peculiar  creation  of  the  native  Roman  mind, 
— rich  with  its  ancient  morality  and  its 
shrewd  mother-wit.  There  is  no  doing  justice 
to  or  understanding  the  Romans  without  re- 
membering their  humour ; and  we  must  say 
that  when  we  think  of  Horace,  we  involun- 
tarily picture  the  little  man  trotting  on  his 
mule  and  watching  with  the  mixed  sympa- 
thy and  criticism  of  a humorist  the  country 
folk,  or  curiously  scanning  the  flow  of  life  in 
the  Suburra  or  the  Sacred  Way.  We  rather, 
that  is,  find  such  images  of  him  rising  before 
us  than  those  presented  by  the  lyrics,  — Ana- 
creontic visions  of  poetic  dissipation,  — Ho- 
ratius  under  a vine,  with  his  hair  anointed, 
listening  to  Tyndaris,  while  Puer,  myrtle- 
crowned,  is  coming  along  with  a wine-jar. 
Briefly,  it  is  our  theory  that  the  historical 
Horace  was  a philosophical  satirist  and  moral- 

76 


ist ; that  his  other  gifts  were  subordinate,  and 
that  his  lyrics  must  be  studied  with  a constant 
eye  to  their  artificial  and  (in  some  instances, 
at  all  events)  utterly  unreal  character.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  he  had  been  only  satirist 
and  moralist,  how  could  he  have  written  the 
Carmina,  — supposing  him  to  have  imitated 
ever  so  closely  Alcaeus  and  Sappho  and  Ana- 
creon ? And  here  it  is  useless  to  puzzle  our- 
selves over  the  recondite  meanings  that  may 
lie  in  the  word  Poet.  He  is  a poet  who  can 
produce  the  effects  of  poetry.  The  Bandusian 
Fountain  gratifies  the  sense  by  its  coolness, 
and  lulls  it  with  its  plash.  What  can  anybody 
who  describes  a fountain  do  more  ? We  are 
far  from  maintaining  that  Horace  was  no  poet 
at  all.  We  think  that  in  mind  and  character 
he  was  essentially  a philosopher ; but  that  he 
had  sufficient  poetic  genius  — given  a lyrical 
literature  and  foreign  metres  — to  produce  de- 
lightful odes,  and  odes  which  we  should  still 
enjoy,  even  if  the  songs  of  Lesbos  had  sur- 
vived. But  this  is  a different  thing  from  call- 
ing a man  a creative  poet.  The  civilised 
world,  in  fact,  had  advanced  in  the  time  of 
Augustus  beyond  the  stage  where  lyrics  origi- 
nate. They  belong  to  the  grand  old  singing 

77 


time  of  peoples,  when  their  hearts  and  voices 
are  young,  — to  the  spring  season  of  a race, 
when  its  creeds  and  institutions  are  flourishing 
healthily  about  it  like  the  leaves,  and  it  pours 
out  song  for  song’s  sake.  Horace  was  as  far 
removed  in  time  from  that  epoch,  as  we  are 
from  the  epoch  which  produced  the  feudal 
ballads.  And,  indeed,  it  would  not  be  absurd 
to  compare  his  poetic  position  under  Augus- 
tus, with  that  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  under 
George  the  Fourth.  They  were  both  poets, 
but  not  poets  only.  They  were  both  inspired 
by  the  minstrelsy  of  a day  long  gone  by,  and 
yet  as  men  of  the  world  and  of  general  genius 
acquired  a fame  apart  from  their  poetic  fame. 
It  is  not  as  singer  after  all,  so  much  as  thinker, 
that  Horace  has  left  his  mark  on  Europe;  and 
when  we  talk  of  Sir  Walter,  we  talk  of  him 
rather  as  the  great  describer  of  character,  the 
wise,  kindly  judge  of  mankind,  than  as  the 
bard  who  sang  the  battles  of  Flodden  or  Har- 
law. 

According  to  this  view,  Horace  is  beginning 
definitely  to  take  his  place  as  the  great  man  of 
the  world  among  poets,  and  the  great  poet 
of  men  of  the  world.  He  heads  that  large 
and  influential  body  of  writers  which  includes 

78 


in  our  literature  Addison  and  Pope ; men  who 
have  written  admirable  poems,  but  who  are 
yet  (by  a popular  instinct  perhaps  deeper  than 
criticism)  separated  as  a class  from  the  Shake- 
speares  and  Spensers.  His  character,  too, 
rises  definitely  before  us  and  harmonises  with 
his  works,  when  we  describe  him  as  one  of 
the  best  and  kindliest  men  of  the  world 
whose  biography  has  ever  become  a matter 
of  historical  concern.  Horace  is  not  a soli- 
tary singer  living  in  his  own  world,  and  lis- 
tened to  from  without,  like  a nightingale. 
He  is  a cheerful  creature,  loving  society  and 
the  light ; a man  among  men  as  well  as  a 
writer  for  them.  His  soul  was  not  a star  that 
dwelt  apart ; but  an  exceedingly  pleasant  and 
brilliant  lamp  for  the  habitations  of  mankind. 
“Sir,”  said  Dr.  Johnson,  emphatically  at  the 
Mitre,  when  Boswell  wondered  how  he  could 
live  on  easier  terms  with  the  learned  and 
pious  doctor  than  with  his  own  father,  “ I am 
a man  of  the  world,  and  I take  the  colour  of 
the  world  as  it  moves  along.”  This  was  Hor- 
ace’s way.  He  wrote  charming  little  songs 
for  it  (after  the  Greek,  many  of  them) ; made 
beautiful  little  paintings  for  it,  — graceful 
delineations  of  that  ancient  mythology  which 

79 


could  still  gratify  the  eye  though  it  had  ceased 
to  satisfy  the  soul  of  the  pagan  world ; and, 
while  doing  so,  took  up  his  own  successful 
position  in  society,  and  studied  it  to  the  very 
core.  Such  a career  is  not  to  be  compared  in 
dignity  and  purity  with  that  of  Milton.  It 
was  the  career  of  an  artist  and  a philosopher, 
— not  pretending  to  a mission  for  reforming 
the  world ; but  making  the  best  of  it  as  he 
found  it,  and  on  the  whole  using  his  fine  gifts 
with  wisdom  and  delicacy.  We  must  remem- 
ber how  hard  it  was  to  rise  to  a nobler  theory 
of  life  in  his  time  and  position,  amidst  the 
ruins  of  a constitution  and  the  decay  of  a faith. 
He  had  seen  Stoicism  (of  which  he  felt  the 
dignity)  vanish  from  politics  with  Brutus. 
Nothing  was  left  him  but  the  practice  of  Art 
and  the  philosophy  of  Moderation.  And  after 
all,  too,  the  cause  of  Augustus  was  his  cause  ; 
though  he  did  not  perhaps  know  it,  when  he 
threw  away  his  shield  amidst  the  dust  of  Phi- 
lippi. It  can  only  have  been  by  accident  that 
he  — the  son  of  a libertinus  — was  tribune  of 
a legion  in  what  really  was  the  cause  of  Oli- 
garchy. But  the  rise  of  freedmen  and  provin- 
cials, and  the  encouragement  of  letters,  were 
fundamental  parts  of  the  Caesarean  policy,  — 

80 


a fact  which  takes  from  the  poet’s  eulogies 
of  the  emperor  all  suspicion  of  that  unwilling 
and  unreal  flattery  which  the  world  justly  exe- 
crates as  base. 

Having  touched  on  Horace’s  biography,  we 
may  add  that,  in  that  department  also,  our 
modern  scholars  are  arriving  at  something  like 
a compromise.  Dean  Milman  says  that  we 
cannot  get  at  the  truth  about  the  order  of 
composition  of  the  “Odes.”  Professor  New- 
man agrees  with  him.  The  Germans  will 
probably  give  up  the  fruitless  task  soon;  and 
Dillenburger,  we  observe,  while  adopting 
Franke’s  arrangement  in  the  text  of  his  Life, 
is  content  to  put  his  own  criticisms  on  it  in 
the  notes.  When  our  great  Bentley  issued 
what  he  thought  the  true  chronology,  he 
pronounced,  more  suo,  that  whenever  learned 
men  went  beyond  the  limits  he  had  fixed, 
they  went  wrong.  The  world  has  not  finally 
accepted  the  Bentleian  plan,  but  at  least  it  has 
accepted  no  other. 

It  is  obvious  that  there  must  be  much  in  the 
" Odes  ” not  to  be  treated  as  a source  of  gen- 
uine Horatian  biography.  Take,  for  instance, 
his  love  affairs,  which  have  been  discussed  with 
such  matter-of-fact  solemnity  that  one  critic 

81 


published  a special  dissertation  on  “ Tynda- 
ris  ” ! Which  is  the  wildest  extreme  ? to  de- 
scribe, as  Buttmann  does,  all  such  critics  as 
“ gossiping  anecdote  mongers,”  or  to  hold  out 
for  the  historical  reality  and  personal  existence 
of  Barine,  Cinara,  Chloe,  Chloris,  Galatea, 
Glycera,  Inachia,  Lalage,  Lyce,  Lyde,  Lydia, 
Myrtale,  Neaera,  Pholoe,  Phryne,  Phyllis, 
Pyrrha,  and  Tyndaris  ? Of  the  two  alterna- 
tives, we  prefer  the  first.  We  think  that  it  is 
ridiculous  to  go  on  discussing  the  dates  and 
order  of  such  imaginary  attachments  with  as 
much  gravity  as  if  we  were  talking  of  Mil- 
ton’s wives  : — 

Res  est  ridicula  et  nimis  iocosa. 

It  is  evident  that  the  poet  used  these  pretty 
names  to  garnish  a song  without  any  eye  to 
reality  or  consistency.  In  Carmen  I,  22,  he 
is  singing  of  Lalage,  and  a wolf  flies  from  him, 
but  in  II,  5,  a friend  is  advised  not  to  make 
love  to  her,  because  she  is  too  young.  Phyl- 
lis, in  Carmen  II,  4,  is  the  object  of  the  affec- 
tion of  Xanthias  Phoceus  ; in  IV,  11,  she  is 
invited  to  come  and  keep  Maecenas’  birthday, 
and  to  give  up  all  thoughts  of  Telephus.  The 
Chloe  of  Carmen  III,  7,  is  not  the  Threician 

82 


Chloe  of  the  famous  “ Donee  grams,”  III,  9. 
So,  too,  Horace  is  violently  enamoured  of  Gly- 
cera  (Carmen  I,  19),  and  presently  (I,  33)  is 
found  consoling  Tibullus  for  her  preference 
of  a lover  younger  than  them  both.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  as  it  is  a point  of  honour 
with  the  editors  to  identify  the  damsels  when 
they  can,  we  should  find  them  contradicting 
each  other  sadly.  “ For  some  little  while 
we  find  Glycera  is  his  toast,”  says  Professor 
Newman  ; “ Glycerae  nomen  fictum  et  Grae- 
cum,”  says  Dillenberger  ; though  it  is  never 
without  a sigh  that  the  learned  German  parts 
with  one  of  these  literary  houris.  Mr.  New- 
man seems  to  suffer  real  pain  from  the  con- 
templation of  Horace’s  delinquencies.  There 
is  a well-known  ode,  the  “ Parcius  iunctas  ” 
(Carmen  I,  25),  addressed  to  Lydia  growing 
old.  “ Of  all  Horace’s  odes,”  says  the  pro- 
fessor, “ this  is,  perhaps,  the  most  disparaging 
to  his  memory.  He  abuses  his  high  poetical 
powers  to  exult  in  her  deplorable  state  when 
her  beauty  is  vanishing,”  etc.  Now  where, 
we  ask,  is  the  evidence  that  this  is  the  Lydia 
who  figures  in  three  other  lyrics  ? Is  the 
girl  who  in  I,  8 is  spoiling  Sybaris,  who  in 
I,  1 3 is  in  love  with  Telephus,  who  in  III,  9 is 

83 


reconciled  to  Horace  in  a renowned  amoebaean 
as  an  old  flame,  — one  and  the  same  person  ? 
The  negative  may  be  proved  almost  to  dem- 
onstration. The  three  books  in  which  these 
poems  about  Lydia  occur,  were  wrtten  and 
published,  according  to  the  best  theories,  from 
a.  u.  c.  723  to  a.  u.  c.  731.  There  is  not 
time  for  all  this  courting,  bickering,  making 
up  with  — and,  finally,  heartless  desertion  in 
age  — of  Lydia ; indeed,  if  we  accept  Bentley’s 
statement  that  Book  Third  of  the  “ Odes  ” 
belongs  to  A.  u.  c.  730,  731,  we  shall  find 
Horace  becoming  reconciled  to  a blooming 
Lydia  four  or  five  years  after  he  has  taunted 
her  with  being  a withered  old  woman.  Surely 
it  is  much  more  reasonable,  not  to  add  more 
complimentary  to  the  poet,  to  suppose  that 
a wanton  growing  old  was  a subject  which 
he  took  up  (possibly  after  some  lost  Greek 
original)  as  a lyric  artist,  and  that  “ Lydia  ” 
was  one  of  the  stock  names  which  he  found 
at  his  hand  for  the  purpose.  On  such  a sup- 
position all  difficulties  vanish.  The  odes 
which  celebrate  historical  events  retain  their 
dates  and  their  reality.  The  odes  which  are 
addressed  to  known  individuals  — Maecenas, 
Pompeius,  Varus,  Vergil,  Valgius  — speak  for 

84 


themselves.  A batch  of  compositions,  some 
very  pretty  ^ some  very  painful,  remain  to  be 
ranked  as  fancy  pictures. 

We  are  aware  that  readers  of  Horace,  to 
whom  such  views  about  his  odes  are  new,  will 
be  apt  to  think  that  we  underrate  his  genius, 
and  rob  him  of  a certain  romantic  halo  of 
glory  and  love.  They  may  rest  assured  that 
our  admiration  of  his  gifts  is  little  short  of 
worship,  and  that  we  by  no  means  endeavour 
to  make  his  genius  more  intelligible,  for  the 
sake  of  making  it  less  admired.  He  was  an 
imitator  in  his  lyrics  — true  ; but,  besides  that, 
he  shows  wondrous  skill  in  Art ; there  was  a 
certain  poetry  in  his  selecting  lyric  poetry 
to  labour  on,  at  all  ! Lyric  poetry  was  his 
fairy-land ; it  was  the  region  he  wandered 
into  to  refresh  his  mind  after  the  life  of 
Rome,  as  he  went  to  Tibur,  or  the  Sabine 
woods,  or  Baiae,  or  Praneste,  to  refresh  his 
bodily  health  and  spirits.  He  had  created  to 
himself  this  world  out  of  the  old  Southern  lit- 
erature ; and  it  was  to  him  what  the  Leasowes 
was  to  Shenstone,  what  the  feudal  life  was 
to  Scott,  an  ideal  world  which  he  tried  to 
realise,  that  it  might  tint  his  ordinary  exist- 
ence, as  the  Roman  citizen  of  a not  happy  age, 

85 


with  the  hues  of  antique  loveliness  and  ro- 
mance. We  are  much  mistaken  if,  on  this 
scheme,  Horace  does  not  appear  more  really 
poetic  in  character  than  he  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  have  been.  He  wrote  satires  which 
have  now  and  then  traits  of  coarseness  in 
them ; he  dined  out  at  the  coenae  of  the  great 
city  somewhat  too  much,  gorging  himself  with 
the  peacocks,  the  sanglier,  and  the  shell-fish 
of  a luxurious  age.  He  mixed  personally 
sometimes  with  circles  where  the  moral  tone 
was  low.  But  see  how  he  relieves  this  prosaic 
course  of  existence  with  music  imitated  from 
an  earlier  lyre  ! What  figure  has  he  conjured 
out  of  the  woods  ? It  is  Faunus,  the  lover  of 
the  flying  nymphs,  and  for  him  a kid  smokes 
on  his  poetic  altar.  He  thinks  of  his  boy- 
hood, when,  as  the  son  of  the  humble  coactor, 
he  was  sporting  about  in  Venusia,  and  throws 
a tinge  of  the  ancient  piety  and  poetry  over 
his  infancy  by  singing  how,  as  he  lay  asleep  on 
one  of  his  native  mountains,  doves  came  and 
covered  him  with  fresh-pulled  leaves,  — 

Non  sine  dis  animosus  infans. 

Did  he  believe  in  Faunus  ? Did  he  intend 
that  others  should  accept  literally  the  story  of 

86 


the  doves  ? We  might  as  well  ask  if  Pope 
believed  in  the  sylphs  and  gnomes,  or  Scott 
in  the  White  Lady.  We  know  from  Cicero, 
and  other  authorities,  how  little  of  the  an- 
cient mythology  was  believed  by  Romans  of 
the  cultivated  classes ; and  that  if  poets  em- 
ployed it,  it  was  for  the  sake  of  the  art,  as 
it  was  employed  by  statesmen  for  its  utility 
in  politics.  The  ancients  were  steeped  in 
artistic  influences  to  a degree  unknown  in  mod- 
ern life,  and  when  the  dove  story  was  charm- 
ingly told,  its  fabulous  character,  its  contrast 
to  the  associations  of  the  actual  Horatius,  a 
satirical,  weak-eyed,  slovenly  little  gentleman 
crossing  one  of  the  bridges  to  go  to  a dinner 
in  the  suburbs,  would  offend  nobody.  Suffice 
it  that  the  Alcaics  were  musical,  and  the 
image  itself  full  of  beauty. 

Horace  so  mastered  with  his  genius  and  in- 
corporated with  himself  the  iEolian  song,  that 
he  rose  to  originality  through  imitation, — 
the  boast  of  Boileau  in  a position  somewhat 
similar.  Nobody,  we  suppose,  will  deny  that 
when  the  news  of  the  victory  at  Actium  and 
its  results  reached  Rome,  and  Horace  (then 
aetat . thirty-four,  and  only  known  as  a satirist) 
began  that  fine  ode  the  “ Nunc  est  bibendum,” 

87 


he  began  it  under  the  inspiration  of  the  Nw 
Xprj  peOvcrOrjv  with  which  Alcasus  hailed  the 
death  of  Myrsilus  the  tyrant  of  Lesbos.  But, 
as  in  the  latter  part  of  that  ode,  so  in  sev- 
eral odes  of  which  the  Roman  events  are  the 
subjects,  he  shows  that  he  had  naturalised 
the  art.  He  had  learned  it  first,  and  could 
practise  it  afterwards  ; and  this  gives  a pecul- 
iar interest  to  his  historical  Carmina.  The 
“ Caelo  tonantem,”  the  “ Motum  ex  Me- 
tello,”  the  “ Qualem  ministrum,”  are  striking 
from  their  reality,  and  from  a certain  Roman 
dignity — a flow  like  that  of  the  folds  of  a toga 
— about  them.  Pyrrha  and  her  cave,  again, 
Glycera  and  her  chapel,  and  our  exquisite 
little  friend  the  “ Persicos  odi,”  have  some- 
thing always  of  the  air  of  exercises  about  them. 
They  are  clear  and  sweet  as  the  finest  honey, 
but  the  honey  tastes  of  the  flowers  of  Hymet- 
tus.  The  marble  is  that  of  Italy,  but  the  fig- 
ures were  first  found  in  the  stone  of  Paros  or 
Pentelicus. 

The  elder  Scaliger,  speaking  of  Horace,  in 
his  “ Poetics/’  observes  that  doubtless  his  obli- 
gations to  Greek  models  were  great,  but  that 
even  if  we  could  determine  them,  Horace 
would  prove  to  be  more  polished  ( cultiorem ) 

88 


than  his  Greek  predecessors.  Such  decisions 
are  allowed  only  to  men  of  the  Scaliger  rank. 
But  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  laborious  nicety 
of  the  process  by  which  he  learnt  to  write 
lyrics  — first  translating,  then  imitating,  then 
creating  through  imitation  — was  just  the 
thing  to  produce  and  account  for  the  exqui- 
site finish  which  distinguishes  these  composi- 
tions. What  is  it  about  them  that  makes 
the  task  of  the  translators  seem  almost  hope- 
less ? Not  the  spirit,  not  the  dignity,  not  even 
the  grace.  It  is  that  finished  character  to 
which  Scaliger  alludes,  and  which,  though 
the  very  triumph  of  literary  art,  can  only  be 
illustrated  by  comparisons  taken  from  other 
walks  than  literature.  It  reminds  one  rather 
of  statuary,  of  painting  on  ivory,  or  of  cameo- 
carving, than  of  anything  which  writing  can 
afford.  The  loss  of  a phrase  would  spoil  a 
stanza,  and  a change  in  the  order  of  the  words 
ruins  it ; for  phrases  and  words  have  each  a 
place  as  definite  as  that  of  the  pieces  which 
compose  a puzzle,  or  the  stones  in  a tessellated 
pavement.  The  difficulty  is  great  of  finding 
an  equivalent  for  the  sense,  and  it  is  a still 
more  delicate  business  to  imitate  the  form. 

We  cannot  be  surprised,  therefore,  if  our 

89 


early  translations  prove  mere  objects  of  curi- 
osity, and  often  unreadable  even  as  such.  The 
earliest  English  translator  of  any  part  of  Hor- 
ace was  pointed  out  by  Thomas  Warton,  and 
has  not  been  superseded  since.  This  was 
Drant,  who  published  black-letter  versions  of 
some  of  the  “ Satyrs  ” and  “ Pistles,”  and  of 
the  “Art  of  Poetrie,”  in  1566  and  1567, 
which  he  dedicated  to  the  Ladies  Bacon  and 
Cecil,  and  to  the  head  of  that  great  house 
of  Ormond  which  thus  early  showed  a love  of 
letters.  It  would  be  mere  affectation  to  pre- 
tend to  enjoy  Mr.  Drant,  or  to  have  read  him 
through.  He  wrote  in  that  kind  of  ballad- 
metre  (the  Saturnian  verse  of  England)  which 
our  early  translators  much  loved,  and  is  one  of 
the  forgotten  pioneers  of  literature.  The  next 
publication  of  the  kind  was  “ Certain  selected 
Odes  of  Horace,  Englished/’  etc.,  which 
appeared  in  1621.  From  this,  the  earliest 
attempt  known  to  render  any  of  the  lyrics,  we 
shall  transcribe  one  specimen.  This  is  the 
way  in  which,  in  James  the  First’s  time,  they 
turned  the  “ Donee  gratus  ” : — 

H.  When  I enjoy’d  thee  without  check, 

And  none  more  welcome  did  embrace 
The  snowie  treasure  of  thy  neck, 

The  Persian  Monarke  gave  me  place. 

9° 


L.  While  thou  lov’d  not  another  more, 

Nor  Chloe  bare  away  the  bell 
From  Lydia  renowned  before, 

I Roman  Ilia  did  excel. 

H.  Chloe  my  mistris  is  of  Thrace, 

Whose  warbling  voice  by  skill  is  led. 

For  whom  I would  see  Death’s  pale  face, 

If  she  might  live  when  I am  dead. 

L.  Now  Calais  is  my  heart’s  delight, 

He  answers  me  with  love  again. 

For  whom  I twice  with  Death  would  fight, 

If  he  my  half-selfe  did  remaine. 

H.  What  if  sweet  Venus  doe  revive, 

And  true  love’s  knot  between  us  tie, 

If  from  my  thoughts  faire  Chlo’  I drive, 

If  my  doore  ope  when  Lydia’s  nigh. 

L.  Though  he  than  stars  be  fairer  farre, 

Thou  angrier  than  the  raging  seas 
When  ’gainst  the  sturdy  rocks  they  warre, 
With  thee  I ’ll  live  and  end  my  dayes. 

There  is  a not  unpleasant  quaintness  about 
this  — the  work,  it  seems,  of  John  Ashmore, 
and  the  last  stanza  but  one  is  even  pretty.  The 
characteristic  of  all  early  translation  is  its  lit- 
eral nature.  The  first  effort  of  our  ances- 
tors was  to  reproduce  the  original,  — a most 
healthy  instinct,  which  we  trust  will  never 
wear  out,  though  it  may  be  foolishly  as  well  as 

91 


wisely  followed.  We  see  it  in  Ben  Jonson’s 
“ Beatus  ille,”  one  of  three  versions  which 
Ben  made,  and  we  think  his  most  successful 
attempt.  Compare  the  first  twenty-eight  lines 
with  the  original : — 

Happy  is  he  that  from  all  business  clear, 

As  the  old  race  of  mankind  were, 

With  his  own  oxen  tills  his  sire’s  left  lands 
And  is  not  in  the  usurer’s  bands ; 

Nor  soldier-like  started  with  rough  alarms. 

Nor  dreads  the  seas  enraged  harms  : 

But  flees  the  bar  and  courts  with  the  proud  boards, 
And  waiting-chambers  of  great  lords. 

The  poplar  tall  he  then  doth  marrying  twine 
With  the  grown  issue  of  the  vine  ; 

Or  in  the  bending  vale  beholds  afar 
The  living  herds  there  grazing  are  ; 

And  with  his  hook  lops  off  the  fruitless  race. 

And  sets  more  happy  in  their  place ; 

Or  the  pressed  honey  in  pure  pots  doth  keep 
Of  earth,  and  shears  the  tender  sheep. 

Or  when  that  Autumn  through  the  fields  lifts  round 
His  head,  with  mellow  apples  crowned, 

How,  plucking  pears  his  own  hand  grafted  had, 

And  purple-matching  grapes,  he ’s  glad  ! 

With  which,  Priapus,  he  may  thank  thy  hands, 

And  Sylvan,  thine,  that  kep’st  his  lands ! 

Then  now  beneath  some  ancient  oak  he  may 
Now  in  the  rooted  grass  him  lay, 

Whilst  from  the  higher  banks  do  slide  the  floods, 
The  soft  birds  carol  in  the  woods. 

The  fountains  murmur  as  the  streams  do  creep. 

And  all  invite  to  easy  sleep. 

92 


There  is  a stiffness,  to  which  a modern  ear 
does  not  lend  itself  very  readily,  about  these 
lines,  but  their  fidelity  to  the  sense  is  remark- 
able, and  something  of  the  rural  air  of  the 
subject  breathes  from  them  too.  Ben’s  “ Do- 
nee gratus  ” is  scarcely  worthy  of  him,  and  so 
many  eminent  men  have  tried  it  that  we  pass 
his  version  by. 

We  come  next  to  “ Odes  of  Horace,  the 
best  of  Lyrick  Poets,  containing  much  moral- 
ity and  sweetness.  Selected  and  translated  by 
Sir  T.  H.  1625.”  This  was  Sir  Thomas 
Hawkins,  described  by  Wood  as  “of  Nash 
Court  in  the  parish  of  Boughton,  Kent,”  and 
who  died  in  1640.  His  selection  contained 
forty  of  the  odes  ; but  our  readers  would  not 
thank  us  for  inflicting  even  one  upon  them. 
Suffice  it  that  he  begins  the  “ Integer  vitae 99 
thus : — 

Fuscus,  the  man  whose  life’s  entire 
And  free  from  sinne,  needs  not  desire 
The  bow  nor  dart  from  Moore  to  borrow, 

Nor  from  full  quiver  poys’ned  arow ; 

and  concludes  as  follows  : — 

Place  me  in  coldest  champaines  where 
No  summer  warmth  the  trees  doth  cheer: 

Let  me  in  that  dull  climat  rest. 

Which  clouds  and  sullen  Jove  infest, 

93 


Yea  place  me  underneath  the  carre 
Of  too-near  Phoebus : seated  farre 
From  dwellings,  Lalage  I ’ll  love. 

Whose  smile,  whose  words  so  sweetly  move. 

Sir  Thomas  was  a grave  knight,  and  scarcely 
approved  the  amatory  odes,  so  he  prefixes  to 
his  “ Donee  gratus  ” (for  he  too  must  try  it) 
this  highly  diverting  sentence : “ This  Ode, 
though  less  morall  than  the  rest,  I have  ad- 
mitted for  Jul.  Scaliger’s  sake,  who  much 
admired  it.”  He  alludes  to  the  great  critic’s 
celebrated  dictum,  that  he  would  rather  have 
written  that  carmen,  and  the  “ Quern  tu,  Mel- 
pomene,” than  be  king  of  all  Arragon. 

After  Sir  Thomas  Hawkins,  came  the  first 
writer  who  translated  all  the  lyrics,  — Henry 
Rider,  M.  A.,  of  Cambridge,  whose  work  was 
published  in  1638.  Mr.  Rider  is  very  un- 
readable, but  in  gratitude  to  him  as  a father 
of  the  Horatian  church,  we  quote  his  “ Per- 
sicos  odi  ” : — 


Boy,  I doe  hate  the  Persian  nicetie. 

Their  garlands  bound  with  ribands  please  not  me, 
And  doe  not  thou  molest  thyself  to  know 
In  what  place  the  late  springing  rose  doth  blow. 

I chiefly  doe  take  care  you  should  provide, 

To  the  plain  myrtle  nothing  else  beside  ; 

94 


Myrtle  will  not  shame  thee,  my  boy,  nor  mee. 

Drinking  beneath  the  shadowing  vine-tree. 

This  is  deplorably  bad,  but  shows  the  strug- 
gles by  which  our  language  was  trying  to  at- 
tain the  familiar  and  easy  grace  necessary  above 
everything  to  Horatian  interpretation.  From 
Rider  we  pass  to  old  Barten  Holyday  (Arch- 
deacon of  Oxford,  as  Walter  Mapes  had  been 
centuries  before),  whose  Juvenal  is  well  known, 
for  its  oddity  and  accuracy,  to  lovers  of  that 
satirist,  and  is  accompanied  by  a commentary 
full  of  learning.  The  booksellers  of  that  age 
created  some  confusion  by  putting  Holyday’s 
name  to  other  people’s  versions  of  Horace, 
but  his  translation  of  the  odes  first  appeared, 
anonymously,  in  1653.  “All  Horace  his 
Lyrics,  Englished  ” — was  its  title,  and  it  con- 
tained an  address  to  the  reader  beginning,  — 

An  unknown  Muse  presents  to  thy  survey 

A Roman  Lyre  strung  after  th’  English  way. 

The  quaintness  and  oddity,  the  dry  old  hu- 
mour, of  Barten,  employed  upon  so  refined  a 
task  as  he  had  here  undertaken,  are  irresist- 
ible. This  was  the  manner  in  which  he  set 
about  transfusing  the  concentrated  essence  of 
lyrcal  elegance,  the  Ode  to  Pyrrha,  into  the 
native  language  of  Shakespeare  : — 

95 


What  spritely  Younker  amongst  beds  of  roses 
(Pyrrha)  perfumed  with  fragrant  scents  incloses 
Thee  skulkt  in  sweet  retire  ? 

Thy  fair  locks  at  whose  desire, 

Pleat'st  thou  so  up,  array'd  in  homely  cloathes  ? 
O how  he'll  wail  thy  oft-changed  gods,  and  oaths. 
And  count  it  wondrous  strange. 

When  storms  in  thy  countenance  range ! 

Here  we  may  stop.  The  only  excuse  for 
the  old  translation  is,  that  if  Milton  — as  is 
possible  — had  already  written,  he  had  not 
yet  published,  that  remarkable  version  of  this 
ode,  the  merit  of  which  it  will  soon  be  our 
duty  to  defend  against  Lord  Ravensworth. 
Milton’s  “ Pyrrha  ” did  not  appear  in  the  first 
edition  of  his  poems,  in  1645,  nor  for  twenty 
years,  indeed,  after  the  date  at  which  we 
have  now  arrived.  It  is  not  certain,  from 
this  fact,  that  it  was  not  executed  in  his 
youth,  — for  many  accidents  may  have  kept 
it  out  of  his  earliest  poetic  publication,  — 
but  at  least  it  appeared,  as  we  have  it,  with 
the  sanction  of  his  mature  judgment,  a fact 
which  should  weigh  when  its  merits  are  dis- 
cussed. Meanwhile,  we  proceed  with  our  his- 
torical review,  and  the  next  person  we  sum- 
mon to  the  bar  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  a 
man  of  quality,  — Sir  Richard  Fanshawe.  He 

96 


issued  his  volume — “Selected  parts  of  Hor- 
ace, Prince  of  Lyricks  ; and  of  all  the  Latin 
poets  the  fullest  fraught  with  excellent  moral- 
ity ” — in  1652.  This  was  a year  before  Holy- 
day,  but  Fanshawe  introduced  a new  school  of 
Horatian  translation,  and  is  more  conveniently 
mentioned  in  the  order  we  have  chosen. 

Sir  Richard  might  have  been  expected  to 
make  a marked  advance  on  his  predecessors, 
for  he  had  the  advantage  of  being  a man  of 
the  world  as  well  as  a scholar,  and  such  a 
man  will  ever  be  the  likeliest  to  do  justice  to 
the  favourite  of  the  court  of  Augustus,  who 
has  always  been  one  of  the  pet  writers  of  gen- 
tlemen. Like  Horace,  Fanshawe  had  trav- 
elled, and  like  Horace,  he  had  served,  having 
been  taken  prisoner,  fighting  for  his  king,  at 
Worcester.  He  was  envoy  to  the  court  of 
Portugal  under  Charles  II.,  in  which  capacity 
he  negotiated  Charles’s  marriage  with  the  In- 
fanta, and  he  died  ambassador  at  Madrid  in 
1666.  During  this  various  experience,  he 
always  cultivated  the  Musae  mansuetiores , and 
he  seems  to  have  thought  that  if  Horace  was 
to  be  well,  he  must  be  freely,  translated.  Sir 
John  Denham,  his  contemporary,  who  is  de- 
clared by  Johnson  “to  have  been  one  of  the 

97 


first  that  understood  the  necessity  of  emanci- 
pating translation  from  the  drudgery  of  count- 
ing lines  and  interpreting  single  words,”  gives 
the  same  praise  to  Fanshawe,  whom  he  ad- 
dresses thus  : — 

That  servile  path  thou  nobly  dost  decline, 

Of  tracing  word  by  word  and  line  by  line ; 

A new  and  nobler  way  thou  dost  pursue, 

To  make  translations  and  translators,  too ; 

They  but  preserve  the  ashes,  thou  the  flame. 

True  to  his  sense,  but  truer  to  his  fame. 

This  is  high  praise,  brilliantly  expressed, 
but  it  is  scarcely  justified,  we  fear,  by  any  part 
of  Fanshawe’s  Horace  when  tested  by  to-day’s 
standard.  His  “ Aequam  memento  ” may  be 
taken  as  a fair  specimen  : — 

Keep  still  an  equal  mind,  not  sunk 
With  storms  of  adverse  chance,  not  drunk 
With  sweet  prosperitie, 

O Dellius  that  must  die ! 

Whether  thou  live  still  melancholy, 

Or  stretched  in  a retired  valley, 

Make  all  thy  hours  merry 
With  bowls  of  choicest  sherry. 

Where  the  white  poplar  and  tall  pine 
Their  hospitable  shadow  joyne, 

And  a soft  purling  brook 
With  wriggling  stream  doth  crook. 

98 


Bid  hither  wines  and  oyntments  bring 
And  the  too  short  sweets  of  the  spring. 

Whilst  wealth  and  youth  combine 
And  the  Fates  give  thee  line. 

Thou  must  forego  thy  purchas’d  seats, 

Even  that  which  golden  Tiber  wets. 

Thou  must,  and  a glad  heyre 
Shall  revel  with  thy  care. 

If  thou  be  rich,  born  of  the  race 
Of  ancient  Inachus,  or  base 
Liest  in  the  street ; all ’s  one. 

Impartial  Death  spares  none. 

All  go  one  way : Shak’d  is  the  Pot 
And  go  first  or  last  comes  forth  thy  Lot, 

The  pass  by  which  thou  ’rt  sent 
T*  Eternall  Banishment. 

Here  we  have  a version  smacking  of  a 
period  of  transition.  Parts  of  it  are  flowing, 
and  parts  musical,  but  there  are  obstinately 
rough  bits  stopping  the  stream,  like  “ snags  ” 
in  an  American  river ; and  a general  adhesion 
to  the  text  is  varied  by  free  imitation,  as  in  — 
. . . bowls  of  choicest  sherry. 

The  next  epoch  in  the  literary  history  of 
the  subject  is  marked  by  the  ascendancy  of 
the  “free”  system  altogether.  Metaphrase 
was  succeeded  by  paraphrase.  Translation, 
which  at  first  had  been  exercise,  became  now 

99 


amusement.  Our  own  poets  — the  Wallers 
and  Sucklings  — had  shown  that  English 
might  be  employed  for  poetic  purposes,  with 
that  familiar  elegance  which  is  one  of  Hor- 
ace’s charms.  Accordingly  the  great  aim, 
now,  was  not  to  make  English  subordinate  to 
Latin,  but  to  compel  the  Latin  to  accom- 
modate itself  to  English.  The  Restoration 
writers  introduced  a new  way  of  adapting 
Horace  to  modern  life,  which  was  sometimes 
very  happily  done;  especially  by  Oldham  and 
Wilmot  Lord  Rochester.  The'  “ Pyrrha  ” of 
Milton,  which  appeared  in  1673,  exercised  no 
influence  on  this  lively  generation.  It  stands 
alone,  in  fact,  in  Horatian  history,  and  will  be 
most  fitly  examined  when  we  come  to  inquire 
what  our  latest  translators  have  done  to  super- 
sede permanently  the  men  of  earlier  times.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  adaptation  system  made  a 
lasting  mark.  It  led  to  scores  of  productions 
in  which  London  was  substituted  for  Rome  in 
imitation  or  in  parody.  Our  political  light 
literature  took  it  up,  and  made  comic  and 
satirical  use  of  it,  down  to  the  days  of  the  Anti- 
Jacobin,  the  Horace  in  London  of  the  Smiths, 
and  the  newspaper  squibs  of  Tom  Moore. 
These  facetiae , though  often  clever,  demand 

100 


little  notice  on  the  present  occasion,  but  they 
have  helped  to  make  the  influence  of  the 
Venusian  sink  into  the  modern  mind,  and 
to  justify  those  who  place  him  in  the  very 
first  rank,  for  importance,  among  the  lighter 
writers  of  the  world. 

This  change  in  the  fashion  and  style  of 
translation  which  marked  the  latter  half  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  has  been  discussed  and 
illustrated  by  Dryden  in  his  usual  easy  vigour. 
“ All  their  translations,”  says  he,  — speaking 
of  the  old  school,  — “ want  to  be  translated  into 
English.”  He  examines  the  whole  subject 
very  ably  in  the  preface  to  his  “ Ovid’s  Epis- 
tles,” of  the  year  1680.  Here  he  divides 
translations  into  three  classes : 1 . That  of 

metaphrase,  or  “ turning  an  author,  word  by 
word,  and  line  by  line.”  2.  That  of  paraphrase, 
or  “ translation  with  latitude.”  3.  That  of 
“ imitation,”  — “ where  the  translator  (if  now 
he  has  not  lost  that  name)  assumes  the  liberty 
not  only  to  vary  from  the  words  and  sense, 
but  to  forsake  them  both  as  he  sees  occasion.” 
Verbal  translation  he  compares  to  “ dancing 
on  ropes  with  fettered  legs ; ” and  concludes 
by  recommending  that  both  extremes  — this 
and  imitation  — should  be  avoided. 


101 


Such  was  his  theory,  and  nobody  will  deny 
that  if  his  practice  as  a translator  of  Horace 
was  not  quite  conformable  to  it,  it  was  marked 
by  all  the  fire  and  daring  of  his  mind.  His 
paraphrase  of  the  “Tyrrhena  regum  proge- 
nies ” is  a model  of  splendid  audacity,  and 
reaches,  in  the  final  passages,  a sublimity  be- 
yond that  of  the  original : — 

Fortune,  that  with  malicious  joy 
Does  man  her  slave  oppress, 

Proud  of  her  office  to  destroy 
Is  seldom  pleased  to  bless ; 

Still  various  and  unconstant  still, 

But  with  an  inclination  to  be  ill, 

Promotes,  degrades,  delights  in  strife, 

And  makes  a lottery  of  life. 

I can  enjoy  her  while  she ’s  kind  ; 

But  when  she  dances  in  the  wind, 

And  shakes  her  wings  and  will  not  stay, 

I puff  the  prostitute  away  ; 

The  little  or  the  much  she  gave,  is  quietly  resigned  ; 

Content  with  poverty,  my  soul  I arm ; 

And  virtue,  though  in  rags,  will  keep  me  warm. 

Surely,  this  is  a noble  amplification  of  the 
following  two  stanzas  : — 

Fortuna  saevo  laeta  negotio  et 
ludum  insolentem  ludere  pertinax 
transmutat  incertos  honores 
nunc  mihi,  nunc  alii  benigna. 


102 


Laude  manentem  ; si  celeres  quatit 
pennas,  resigno  quae  dedit,  et  mea 
virtute  me  involvo  probamque 
pauperiem  sine  dote  quaero. 

Its  grandeur,  and  the  sweep  of  the  music, 
give  an  impression  of  moral  superiority,  and 
make  the  neatness  and  dignity  of  the  Roman 
look  barren  and  cold.  “ I am  not  so  much 
enamoured  of  the  name  of  translator/’  says 
Cowley,  “ as  not  to  wish  rather  to  be  some- 
thing better/’  Dryden  here  is  something 
better.  But,  after  all,  this  is  not  Horace,  and 
what  such  license  becomes  in  meaner  hands 
we  have  only  too  much  reason  to  know. 
Dryden  himself  executed  three  other  odes  on 
a similar  principle,  but  they  have  failed  to 
emulate  the  fame  of  this  magnificent  para- 
phrase, which  throws  into  the  shade  the  cas- 
ual efforts  even  of  Cowley  and  Addison,  and 
remains  unsurpassed  to  this  hour. 

To  Dryden,  in  1684,  Creech  dedicated  his 
translation  of  Horace,  a work  which,  in  our  day, 
has  fallen  into  such  oblivion  that  its  very  name 
would  be  forgotten  if  it  were  not  met  with 
occasionally  in  the  mottoes  to  the  “ Specta- 
tor.” Creech  neglected  the  admirable  ad- 
vice which  Lord  Roscommon  had  given  to 

103 


that  generation,  in  the  “ Essay  on  translated 
verse  ” : — 

Examine  how  your  humour  is  inclined. 

And  which  the  ruling  passion  of  your  mind. 
Then  seek  a poet,  who  your  way  does  bend. 

And  choose  an  author  as  you  choose  a friend. 

A morose  solitary  kind  of  man,  with  a 
head  full  of  out-of-the-way  reading,  and  sus- 
pected of  having,  while  translating  Lucretius, 
become  a believer  in  his  system  of  physics, 
he  took  up  Horace,  whose  philosophy  was 
learned  from  every-day  human  life,  and  whose 
poetry  reflects  now  the  gaiety  and  now  the 
softness  of  the  pleasant  South  ! As  well  might 
a bookworm  have  tried  to  do  the  work  of  a 
silkworm ! He  made,  in  short,  a mistake, 
which  has  often  been  made  since.  He  thought 
that  knowledge  of  Latin  and  power  to  rhyme 
would  avail  for  a task,  towards  which  these 
accomplishments  go  a very  little  way.  How- 
ever common  it  may  be  to  speak  of  literature 
as  if  it  had  no  connection  with  life,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  a really  great  translator  of  Horace 
must  have  something  in  himself  of  the  Hora- 
tian  genius  and  temperament.  Indeed,  the 
mass  of  literary  failures  are  perhaps  less  the 
result  of  stupidity,  than  of  want  of  allowance 

104 


of  the  moral  relation  between  feeling  and  parts. 
A man  who  has  no  eye  for  character  in  his 
private  life  does  not  shrink  from  attempting 
a biography.  A man  whose  solemn  incapa- 
city to  take  a joke  at  a supper  is  the  won- 
der of  his  friends  ventures  on  a satirical  novel. 
We  may  see  the  effect  of  this  kind  of  error 
in  every  branch  of  literature  ; and  translators 
would  do  well  to  remember  that  Colman,  who 
succeeded  with  Terence,  also  wrote  good 
dramas ; and  that  years  before  the  late  Mr. 
Frere  executed  his  admirable  versions  from 
Aristophanes  he  had  won  his  spurs  as  a politi- 
cal satirist  and  wit. 

We  should  only  load  our  pages  if  we  med- 
dled with  Creech’s  attempts  to  reproduce  the 
Odes.  He  was  perhaps  more  in  his  element  in 
the  Satires,  yet  his  honest  and  almost  rude 
quaintness  is  a sorry  representative  of  the  ease 
and  polish  of  his  master.  We  draw  a passage 
or  two  from  the  sixth  satire  of  the  First  Book, 
in  which  the  poet  is  so  delightfully  autobio- 
graphical : — 

If  none  on  me  can  truly  fix  disgrace, 

If  I am  neither  covetous  nor  base, 

If  innocent  my  life,  if  (to  commend 
Myself)  I live  belov’d  by  every  friend, 

io5 


I thank  my  father  for  ’t ; for  he  being  poor, 

His  farm  but  small,  the  usual  ways  forebore; 

He  did  not  send  me  to  his  Flavius*  school, 

To  teach  me  arts,  and  make  me  great  by  rule. 

But  first  he  boldly  brought  me  up  to  town, 

To  see  those  ways  and  make  those  arts  my  own, 
Which  every  knight  and  noble  taught  his  son. 

Now  on  my  bob-tailed  mule,  all  gall’d  and  sore, — 
My  wallet  galls  behind,  my  spurs  before, — 

I ride  whene’er  I will ; I ride  at  ease ; 

As  far  as  soft  Tarentum  if  I please. 

I walk  alone  where’er  my  fancies  lead, 

And  busy  ask  the  price  of  herbs  and  bread. 

Thro’  cheating  Rome,  about  the  close  of  day, 

I freely  walk  ; I go  to  church  and  pray, 

Then  home,  where  I shall  find  a sparing  treat, 
And  three  small  pretty  boys  bring  up  the  meat ; 
Just  by  a white  stone  table  stands,  to  bear 
Two  pots,  one  cup,  and  equal  to  my  fare, 

A cruse  and  platter,  all  poor  earthenware. 

Now,  not  to  mention  that  adsisto  divinis  does 
not  mean  “ I go  to  church,”  one  easily  sees 
that  the  general  rusticity  of  friend  Creech  is 
no  substitute  for  an  original  the  very  familiar- 
ity of  which  is  always  urbane.  Still,  what- 
ever its  defects,  the  Horace  of  Creech  went 
through  several  editions.  Translation  was 
fashionable  in  those  days.  The  most  emi- 
nent men  amused  themselves  with  it,  and  the 

106 


multitude  of  writers  who  fed  the  Miscellanies 
practised  it  incessantly.  Versions  of  Horace 
by  “ Eminent  Hands,”  or  under  some  such 
general  designation,  poured  from  the  press. 
The  majority,  we  fear,  only  made  Horace 
twaddle ; but  now  and  then  came  a man  of 
genius  who  made  him  sing.  Bishop  Atter- 
bury  translated  the  “ Donee  gratus  ” and  the 
“ Quern  tu,  Melpomene.”  The  first  we  ven- 
ture to  pronounce  a failure.  But  the  second  is 
one  of  the  happiest  efforts  in  our  language,  and 
we  shall  proceed  to  give  it  accordingly  : — 

He  on  whose  natal  hour  the  queen 

Of  verse  hath  smiled,  shall  never  grace 
The  Isthmian  gauntlet,  or  be  seen 
First  in  the  fam’d  Olympic  race ; 

He  shall  not,  after  toils  of  war, 

And  taming  haughty  monarch’s  pride, 

With  laurelled  brows  conspicuous  far 
To  Jove’s  Tarpeian  temple  ride: 

But  him  the  streams  which  warbling  flow 
Rich  Tibur’s  fertile  vales  along, 

And  shady  groves,  his  haunts,  shall  know 
The  master  of  th’  iEolian  song. 

The  sons  of  Rome,  majestic  Rome, 

Have  plac’d  me  in  the  poet’s  quire. 

And  envy  now,  or  dead  or  dumb. 

Forbears  to  blame  what  they  admire. 

107 


Goddess  of  the  sweet-sounding  lute, 

Which  thy  harmonious  touch  obeys. 

Who  canst  the  finny  race,  though  mute. 

To  cygnet’s  dying  accents  raise. 

Thy  gift  it  is,  that  all,  with  ease, 

Me  prince  of  Roman  lyrics  own, 

That  while  I live,  my  numbers  please, 

If  pleasing,  is  thy  gift  alone. 

In  these  graceful  and  flowing  lines,  we  have, 
first,  what  is  very  desirable,  a poem  pleasing  in 
itself,  — a poem  which,  read  by  an  English- 
man ignorant  of  Latin,  would  be  loved  for  its 
own  sake.  This  praise  every  translation  ought 
to  merit,  unless  we  are  content  to  rank  trans- 
lations as  mere  curiosities  for  the  amusement 
of  scholars.  But  Atterbury  has  not  gained 
this  success  at  the  expense  of  his  author.  The 
version  is  free,  but  it  is  not  licentious.  He 
has  achieved  it,  which  is  no  common  success, 
in  the  same  number  of  lines  employed  by  his 
master.  Take,  as  a specimen,  the  second 
stanza  : — 

He  shall  not,  after  toils  of  war, 

And  taming  haughty  monarch’s  pride, 

With  laurelled  brows  conspicuous  far 
To  Jove’s  Tarpeian  temple  ride. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  paraphrastic  of 
the  whole,  but  it  is  legitimately  so.  When 

108 


Horace  says,  that  war  shows  the  hero  crowned 
with  laurels  to  the  Capitol,  he  is  thinking  of 
the  pageant  of  the  triumph,  and  the  translator 
has  a right  to  present  the  image  still  more 
clearly.  The  worst  of  paraphrase,  in  general, 
is  that  we  often  find  something  foreign,  some- 
thing modern,  something  which  carries  a 
whole  train  of  new  and  incongruous  associa- 
tions with  it,  added  on  to  the  naked  beauty 
which  it  is  the  translator's  first  business  to  pre- 
serve intact.  This  ode  of  Atterbury’s  is  less 
classical,  indeed,  than  Milton's  “ Pyrrha,"  but 
we  are  afraid  that  some  inferiority  in  that 
respect  is  inseparable  from  the  use  of  modern 
metres  and  modern  rhyme. 

Our  plan  now  brings  us  to  those  celebrated 
“ Imitations  " of  Horace  by  Pope,  which  have 
a most  important  bearing  on  the  history  of  the 
present  subject.  They  are  not  translations  of 
his  Satires  and  Epistles,  but  they  have  had  the 
effect  of  making  translations  impossible.  They 
have  beaten  the  antiques  out  of  the  English 
market.  They  have  embodied  classical  models 
in  a domestic  manufacture,  like  the  Wedgwood 
china.  Accordingly,  while  men  of  mark  still 
occupy  themselves  with  the  “ Carmina,"  unde- 
terred by  the  great  memories  with  which  they 

109 


provoke  competition,  as  regards  the  other  works 
this  is  not  so  conspicuously  the  case.  The 
more  difficult  of  the  two  tasks  is  also  the  more 
popular.  One  reason  doubtless  is,  that  many 
of  the  “ Odes  ” possess  a universality  of  inter- 
est, as  poems,  which  the  Satires,  from  their 
local  and  personal  nature,  cannot  claim ; but 
it  is  a still  stronger  reason,  that  half  a dozen 
of  the  best  works  of  the  latter  class  have  been 
“ imitated  ” in  compositions  not  inferior  to  the 
original. 

These  “ Imitations  ” give  the  same  kind  of 
pleasure  to  the  English  reader  that  Horace 
himself  does  to  scholars,  — the  pleasure  of 
ridicule,  and  wit,  and  fancy,  and  character. 
Why,  then,  should  the  English  reader  care  for 
more  ? But,  at  the  same  time,  it  must  always 
be  remembered  that  they  are  only  imitations, 
and  that  Pope  executed  them  rather  with  his 
own  fame,  than  with  that  of  his  model,  before 
his  eyes.  It  is  clear  that  they  were  selected 
by  him  partly  as  affording  an  opportunity 
of  shooting  at  his  enemies  from  behind  a 
Roman  wall ; and  where  Horace  only  tickles, 
Pope  stabs  — the  Roman  being  beyond  doubt 
the  more  easy,  amiable,  kindly,  and  healthy 
man  of  the  two.  Pope  puts  a sly  infusion  of 

no 


poison  into  the  Horatian  pleasantry.  A hint  at 
the  couplet  on  “ furious  Sappho  ” (Sat.  lib.  ii,  i) 
will  suffice  to  remind  us  that  he  did  not 
find  the  filthy  venom  in  his  master.  But 
all  minor  instances  sink  into  insignificance 
when  we  remember  that  he  turned  Horace’s 
whole  noble  panegyric  upon  Augustus  (Epist. 
ii,  i ) into  an  exquisitely  ironical  attack  upon 
George.  The  likeness  between  these  satirists, 
then,  is  only  partial  and  occasional.  The 
“ Imitations  ” are  admirable  in  themselves ; 
they  will  sometimes  recall  Horace  to  a man 
who  knows  him,  and  something  of  him  they 
will  suggest  to  a man  who  does  not ; but 
they  are  more  Popian  than  Horatian  at  all 
times ; and  they  do  not  by  any  means  suffi- 
ciently represent  the  whole  character  of  the 
older  writer.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  the 
satirical  epoch  of  Horace  was  that  of  his  youth, 
and  of  Pope  that  of  his  maturity.  The 
“ Imitations  ” of  Swift,  though  very  clever 
and  humorous,  are  less  elaborate,  and  much 
freer  than  those  of  his  friend ; nor  have  they 
had  anything  like  the  same  influence  on  pos- 
terity. 

We  owe  to  Pope  two  imitations  also  of  the 
odes  ; but  neither  demands  much  notice.  Nor 


1 1 1 


do  we  feel  ourselves  bound  to  record  every 
production  of  the  kind  afforded  by  the  light 
literature  of  that  age,  nor  to  turn  what  ought 
to  be  a museum  of  art  into  a lumber-room  of 
curiosities.  We  have  passed  in  silence  the 
odes  by  Coxwell  (1718),  and  we  shall  not  lin- 
ger over  those  of  Hare  (1737).  Hare’s  pre- 
face tells  us,  — 

I have  try’d  to  make  my  author  look  somewhat 
like  himself  in  an  English  dress,  to  give  him  some 
of  that  graceful  ease  and  genteel  air  that  he  appears 
with  in  his  own  country  habit. 

This  declaration  has  interest,  because  it  ex- 
presses the  taste  of  the  writer’s  age.  Horace 
now  appears  in  a tiewig.  The  old  translators 
had  endeavoured,  as  we  have  seen,  to  catch  his 
form  as  well  as  his  spirit.  The  new  ones 
were  content  to  aim  at  the  spirit  only ; but 
they  substituted,  of  course,  a form  of  their 
own,  so  that  we  are  really  as  far  from  them  as 
they  were  from  him.  Horace  remains  the 
same ; but  when  we  take  up  Francis,  we  have 
to  modernise  in  his  case  what  he  wrote  as  a 
modernisation  of  an  ancient.  This  justifies 
the  writers  who  in  our  own  times  renew 
the  task,  but  it  should  warn  them  too ; for  a 
translation  done  only  with  reference  to  the 

1 12 


fashion  of  one  age  becomes  obsolete  in  the  next. 
Francis  went  through  many  editions  in  the  last 
century,  and  in  ours  how  has  his  fame  shrunk  ! 
His  celebrity  is  lost  in  the  light  of  that  of 
his  son  Sir  Philip,  and  his  books  are  read  only 
by  the  few.  Yet  his  “ Horace  ” — originally 
published  in  1742  — reigned  longer  than  any 
“ Horace  ” ever  published  in  this  country,  and 
if  we  now  weary  of  its  ascendancy,  we  do  not 
find  it  easy  to  name  its  successor. 

Indeed,  with  that  good  old  literary  conser- 
vatism which  none  respect  more  than  our- 
selves, England  still  continues  to  honour  Fran- 
cis while  she  ceases  to  read  him,  and  in  the 
eyes  of  the  Trade  his  is  still  the  “ standard  ” 
translation  of  the  Venusian.  Passing  over, 
then,  some  versions  of  later  date  which  have 
failed  to  acquire  recognition,  we  think  our 
best  plan  will  be  to  institute  a comparison  be- 
tween Francis  and  such  of  our  contemporaries 
as  appear  (though  we  intend  no  slight  to  those 
whom  we  may  happen  to  omit)  worthy  to 
dispute  the  honour  of  the  succession  to  his 
crown. 

We  repeat,  that  the  fashion  of  his  age  is 
too  strongly  apparent  in  the  version  of  Fran- 
cis. Omitting  all  reference  to  the  Satires  and 

ll3 


Epistles  (no  contemporary  translation  of  which 
is  before  us)  let  us  look  at  the  Odes.  One 
stanza  of  the  “ Parcius  iunctas  ” shall  give  us 
the  cue : — 

Parcius  iunctas  quatiunt  fenestras 
ictibus  crebris  iuvenes  protervi 
nec  tibi  somnos  adimunt,  amatque 
ianua  limen. 

The  wanton  herd  of  rakes  profest 
Thy  windows  rarely  now  molest 
With  midnight  raps,  or  break  thy  rest 
With  riot. 

This  is,  surely,  rather  coarse  and  familiar. 
Iuvenes  protervi  were  not  vulgar  rakes  in  Hor- 
ace’s eyes.  Their  follies  were  to  be  touched, 
but  lightly  and  prettily  ; and  it  cannot  be  too 
often  repeated  that  in  rendering  Horace  nicety 
is  everything.  All  the  ode  before  us  is  done 
in  the  same  vein.  Francis  may  have  been 
thinking  of  the  London  rakes  of  his  own  age, 
— and  Chesterfield  speaks  of  a rake  as  a black- 
guard, — but  this  is  just  the  kind  of  license 
which  ruins  classical  translation.  We  have 
no  business  to  keep  modern  associations  before 
us  when  employed  on  the  task,  unless  a pro- 
fessed adaptation  is  what  we  have  in  hand. 
But  we  shall  better  illustrate  what  we  mean 

114 


by  examining  the  “ Pyrrha  ” of  Francis.  That 
is  a test  ode,  and  we  now  place  the  versions 
of  Francis  and  of  Milton  together  for  com- 
parison : — 

While  liquid  odours  round  him  breathe. 

What  youth,  the  rosy  bower  beneath, 

Now  courts  thee  to  be  kind  ? 

Pyrrha,  for  whose  unwary  heart 
Do  you,  thus  drest  with  careless  art, 

Your  yellow  tresses  bind  ? 

How  often  shall  th’  unpractised  youth 
Of  alter’d  gods,  and  injur’d  truth, 

With  tears,  alas,  complain  ! 

How  soon  behold  with  wond’ring  eyes 
The  black’ning  winds  tempestuous  rise 
And  scowl  along  the  main ! 

While  by  his  easy  faith  betrayed, 

He  now  enjoys  thee,  golden  maid, 

Thus  amiable  and  kind ; 

He  fondly  hopes  that  you  shall  prove 
Thus  ever  vacant  to  his  love, 

Nor  heeds  the  faithless  wind. 

Unhappy  they  to  whom  untried 
You  shine,  alas  ! in  beauty’s  pride ; 

While  I,  now  safe  on  shore, 

Will  consecrate  the  pictur’d  storm, 

And  all  my  grateful  vows  perform 
To  Neptune’s  saving  power. 

Francis 


JI5 


What  slender  youth  bedew’d  with  liquid  odours. 
Courts  thee  on  roses  in  some  pleasant  cave, 

Pyrrha?  For  whom  bind’st  thou 
In  wreaths  thy  golden  hair. 

Plain  in  thy  neatness  ? O how  oft  shall  he 
On  faith  and  changed  Gods  complain  ! and  seas 
Rough  with  black  winds  and  storms 
Unwonted  shall  admire. 

Who  now  enjoys  thee,  credulous,  all  gold. 

Who  always  vacant,  always  amiable, 

Hopes  thee  ; of  flattering  gales 
Unmindful.  Hopeless  they 
To  whom  thou  untried  seem’st  fair.  Me  in  my 
vow’d 

Picture  the  sacred  wall  declares  to  have  hung 
My  dank  and  dropping  weeds 
To  the  stern  God  of  Sea. 

Milton 

Here  we  have  a marked  contrast.  In  Fran- 
cis all  is  loose  and  paraphrastical ; in  Milton 
all  severe  and  exact.  Pyrrha  in  Francis  is 
a modern  girl  in  a “ rosy  bower/’  and  the 
phrases  “ unwary  heart  ” and  “ beauty’s  pride,” 
smack  altogether  of  the  stage  and  the  Miscel- 
lanies. His,  in  fact,  is  not  a translation  at 
all ; but  a poem,  more  or  less  clever,  written 
by  a man  who  had  read  “ Horatii  Carmina,” 
lib.  i,  5,  before  he  began.  Who  could  tell 
that  it  was  supposed  to  be  written  in  the 
South,  for  instance,  where  “ a cave  ” is  a 

1 16 


delicious  place  of  retreat  from  the  sun  ? Who 
would  guess,  from  the  jingling  of  the  undigni- 
fied metre,  that  calm  and  statuesque  beauty 
was  the  character  of  the  Latin  ? The  truly 
classic  tone,  which  may  be  defined  as  the 
union  of  quiet  with  finish,  is  totally  absent 
from  Francis : but  we  contend  that,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  present  in  Milton,  though  it  is 
true  that  every  line  of  Milton's  version  will 
not  equally  bear  rigid  criticism.  “ Plain  in 
thy  neatness"  is  a flat  substitute  for  simplex 
munditiis ; and  the  thirteenth  line  mars  the 
fine  musical  effect  of  the  opening. 

But  Lord  Ravensworth  will  not  allow  us  to 
go  even  so  far  as  this  in  praise  of  the  “ Pyrrha  " 
of  the  immortal  John.  He  even  objects  to  its 
grammar,  saying  that  “ he  who  could  make 
use  of  such  a phrase  as  the  following  — 

Who  now  enjoys  thee,  credulous,  all  gold  — 

seems  to  have  been  so  absorbed  in  his  Latin 
as  to  have  forgotten  at  the  moment  his  Eng- 
lish." We  presume  that  he  supposes  the  poet 
to  be  using  “ gold  " for  “ golden  " as  an  adjec- 
tive. But  in  reality  he  is  using  “ gold  " as  a 
noun,  and  with  perfect  correctness.  Just  so, 
George  Herbert  says,  “ man  is  all  symmetry," 

ll7 


meaning  that  he  is  a symmetrical  creation. 
And,  just  so,  if  a young  fellow  were  to  de- 
scribe his  sweetheart  as  “ all  honey,”  he  would 
be  talking  nonsense,  no  doubt,  but  quite  accu- 
rate grammar.  A more  serious  objection  of 
his  Lordship’s  is,  that  an  English  lyrical  com- 
position without  the  graces  of  rhyme  has  little 
to  recommend  it.  As  a general  principle,  this 
is  true,  for  the  best  of  our  lyrics  are  graced 
by  that  sweet  ornament  so  naturally  dear  to 
Northern  ears.  But  after  Tennyson’s  “Prin- 
cess ” it  is  hard  to  doubt  that  blank  verse  may 
be  made  musical  enough  for  any  purpose ; and 
does  Lord  Ravensworth  seriously  deny  all 
musical  charm  to  the  version  by  Milton  which 
has  provoked  this  discussion  ? We  cannot 
think  so,  and  we  believe  that  it  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  to  pronounce  that  version  the 
high-water  mark  which  Horatian  translation 
has  attained.  It  is  faithful ; it  is  elegant ; and 
a success  in  rendering  one  of  these  odes  in  a 
rhythm  even  moderately  like  the  original,  will 
always  give  more  of  the  nameless  charm  of 
classicism  to  a composition  than  the  cleverest 
copy  of  verses  of  which  the  associations  are 
all  modern.  A translation  of  Horace  should 
remind  us  of  Horace  ; should  have  something 

1 1 8 


of  the  effect  of  an  antique  statue  or  gem  : if 
we  lose  sight  of  this  object,  the  reader  is  not 
conscious  that  he  is  supposed  to  be  in  the 
ancient  world  at  all. 

Lord  Ravensworth  may  be  described  as  of 
the  Old  School  of  Translators  when  compared 
with  his  living  rivals,  for  unquestionably  the 
tendency  now  is  in  favour  of  severer  princi- 
ples, and  even  of  new  rhythms.  But  Lord 
Ravensworth  himself  is  decidedly  in  advance 
of  Francis,  and  the  freedoms  which  he  allows 
his  Muse  are  under  the  restraints  of  a higher 
refinement  and  a better  taste.  He  is  most 
successful  in  heroic  and  elegiac  verse ; and 
beats  Francis,  sometimes,  in  carmina  in  which 
Francis  has  been  happier  than  usual.  Let  us 
view  them  together  contending  for  the  favour 
of  Chloe  in  the  “ Vitas  hinnuleo  ” : — 

You  fly  me,  Chloe  ! like  a vagrant  fawn. 

Tracing  the  footprints  of  its  parent  deer 

Through  each  sequestered  path  and  mazy  lawn 
While  woods  and  winds  excite  a causeless  fear. 

For  should  the  aspen  quiver  to  the  breeze. 

Or  the  green  lizards  rustle  in  the  brake, 

It  bounds  in  vague  alarm  among  the  trees. 

Its  heart-pulse  flutters,  and  its  fibres  quake. 


II9 


Yet  not  as  tiger  do  I follow  you, 

Or  Libyan  lion,  to  destroy  your  charms ; 
Then  cease  to  linger  in  a mother's  view, 

And  learn  the  rapture  of  a lover's  arms. 

Ravens  worth 


Chloe  flies  me  like  a fawn, 

Which  thro'  some  sequester'd  lawn, 

Panting  seeks  the  mother  deer, 

Not  without  a panic  fear 
Of  the  gently  breathing  breeze. 

And  the  motion  of  the  trees. 

If  the  curling  leaves  but  shake, 

If  a lizard  stir  the  brake. 

Frighted  it  begins  to  freeze, 

Trembling  both  at  heart  and  knees. 

But  not  like  a tiger  dire, 

Nor  a lion  fraught  with  ire, 

I pursue  my  lovely  game, 

To  destroy  her  tender  frame. 

Haste  thee,  leave  thy  mother's  arms; 

Ripe  for  love  are  all  thy  charms. 

Francis 

Both  the  dignity  and  the  music  of  the 
Latin  are  here  better  caught  by  Lord  Ravens- 
worth,  though  he  is  more  paraphrastical  than 
we  could  wish.  But  that  our  readers  may 
see  what  the  New  School,  those  who  insist 
on  being  literal  yet  feel  that  they  ought  to 
be  rhythmical,  can  do  towards  an  entirely 
changed  system  of  translation,  we  shall  now 
draw  up,  in  similar  array,  Professor  Newman 

120 


and  Mr.  Sewell.  Mr.  Newman  renounces 
rhyme,  and  wishes  to  introduce  new  metres 
altogether.  Mr.  Sewell  disclaims  any  attempt 
to  transfuse  “the  mind,  spirit,  and  grace  ” of 
the  Roman,  but,  of  course,  hopes  to  prepare 
the  way  for  their  being  better  transfused  by 
and  by : — 

Chloe,  me  thou  shunnest,  like  a fawn, 

Who  by  mountain  tracks  her  scared  dam 
Seeks  devious,  — breeze  or  wood 
Oft  misdoubting  in  empty  fear. 

Should  the  arriving  spring  o'er  quivering  leaves 
Bristle  rude,  or  should  the  lizard  green 
A bramble  move  aside, 

Quick  she  trembles  in  heart  and  knees. 

Yet  not  I,  as  tiger  fierce  to  rend, 

Or  Gaetulian  lion,  follow  thee. 

Oh,  leave  thy  mother's  side, 

Ripe  at  length  for  a dearer  love. 

Newman 

Thou  shunn’st  me,  Chloe,  like  a fawn. 

Its  panic-stricken  mother  seeking, 

On  pathless  mountains,  not  without 

Vain  fear  of  airs  and  wild  wood  creaking. 

For  whether  spring's  approach  hath  rustled 
In  flutt’ring  leaves  or  midst  the  trees 
Green  lizards  have  the  bramble  parted, 

She  trembles  both  in  heart  and  knees. 


I 2 1 


Yet  not  as  a tiger  fierce,  or  lion 
Getulian,  do  I thee  pursue, 

To  crush  thee.  Cease  at  length  to  follow 
Thy  mother,  thou  of  age  for  man  to  woo. 

Sewell 

These  are  interesting  as  experiments,  and  in 
absolute  fidelity  to  the  meaning  of  the  Latin 
are  preferable  to  the  more  common  specimens 
of  translation.  But  with  every  wish  (chiefly 
out  of  a horror  of  the  conventionalism  which 
infects  translators)  to  see  the  New  School  fol- 
low in  the  steps  of  Milton,  we  cannot  allow 
that  they  have  yet  done  much  to  win  over  the 
public.  The  way  to  the  heart  in  these  mat- 
ters is  through  the  ear,  and,  with  due  grati- 
tude to  Mr.  Newman  for  his  accents,  and  his 
hints  how  to  read  his  versions,  we  find  them, 
to  speak  frankly,  somewhat  quaint  and  harsh. 
His  theory  seems  to  be  that  an  ugly  likeness 
to  Horace  is  a better  thing  than  a pretty 
though  vague  imitation ; that  bad  Falernian  is 
preferable  to  good  claret : but  is  not  this  some- 
thing like  the  principle  which  produced  the 
“ supper  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients  ” in 
“ Peregrine  Pickle  ” ? We  certainly  would 
rather  have  a dozen  Miltonic  “ Pyrrhas  ” than 
all  the  free  translations  which  have  appeared 
since  Elizabeth’s  time,  including  the  exquisite 


122 


one  which  we  quoted  from  Bishop  Atterbury. 
But  then,  to  have  to  break  up  all  our  English 
traditions  for  something  utterly  novel,  and  yet 
mediocre,  is  a severe  demand  to  make  from 
the  great  public  which  reads  for  pleasure. 
Probably,  indeed,  the  New  School  will  do  far 
better  things  hereafter  ; but  poetry  rather  than 
prophecy  is  our  present  object,  and  we  must 
fall  to  at  what  we  have  before  us. 

Now  and  then  Professor  Newman  surprises 
us  with  a grateful  flow  of  verse  : — 

Me  not  the  enduring  Sparta 
Nor  fertile-soird  Larissa’s  plain 
So  to  the  heart  has  smitten 
As  Anio  headlong  tumbling, 
Loud-brawling  Albuneia’s  grot, 
Tiburnus’  groves  and  orchards 
With  restless  rivulets  streaming. 

There  is  something  of  the  rush  of  cool 
waters  here.  But  what  would  Horace  say,  if 
he  could  come  to  life,  and  find  himself  singing 
the  two  stanzas  subjoined  : — 

Well  of  Bandusia,  as  crystal  bright, 

Luscious  wine  to  thee  with  flowers  is  due  ; 

To-morrow  shall  a kid 

Thine  become,  who  with  horny  front 

Budding  new,  designs  amours  and  war. 

Vainly:  since  this  imp  o’  the  frisky  herd 
123 


With  life-blood’s  scarlet  gush 
Soon  shall  curdle  thy  icy  pool. 

This  is  hard  to  read,  — while  the  Latin  is 
as  pleasant  to  the  ear  as  the  fountain  which 
it  brings  before  us  to  the  imagination.  Yet 
Mr.  Newman  ought  to  know  that  music 
and  beauty  are  as  much  parts  of  the  poet  as 
his  literal  sense,  and  that  a hideous  fidelity  is 
really  as  unjust  to  him  as  a pretty  but  licen- 
tious paraphrase.  We  find  little  to  remind  us 
agreeably  of  a friend  in  a photograph  of  his 
corpse ; yet,  surely,  that  man  kills  a poet,  who 
robs  him  of  his  musical  breath  ! 

Apropos  of  the  “ Fons  Bandusiae,”  here  is 
a graceful  little  version  of  it  by  Mr.  Henry 
George  Robinson,  known  to  connoisseurs  as  an 
Horatian  collector  as  well  as  translator.  His 
aim  is  to  attain  a greater  accuracy  than  free 
translators  preserve,  yet  without  innovating  in 
metre  or  sacrificing  rhyme.  This  is  a via 
media  which  promises  much,  and  the  labour 
— of  which  every  page  of  Mr.  Robinson’s 
book  is  an  honest  specimen  — has  not  been 
thrown  away : — 

Clearer  than  glass,  Bandusian  font, 

Oh  ! worthy  thou  of  sweetest  wine. 

Nor  wanting  flowers  ; to-morrow  thine 
A kid  shall  be,  whose  budding  front 
124 


Sprouts  his  first  horns,  already  bent 
On  love  and  battles  — vain  intent ! 

For  soon  this  hapless  progeny 
Of  the  lascivious  herd,  for  thee. 

Shall  with  his  young  and  ruddy  gore 
Thy  gelid  streamlet  crimson  o'er. 

Thee  the  fierce  Dogstar’s  blazing  hour 
Cannot  affect;  thou  on  the  ox. 

Plough-wearied,  and  the  rambling  flocks, 

Dost  a refreshing  coolness  shower. 

Among  the  fonts  of  noblest  fame 
Thou  too  shalt  have  a foremost  name, 

Through  me,  who  of  yon  ilex  sing, 

The  hollow  rocks  o'ershadowing. 

Downward  from  whence,  with  prattling  sound, 
Thy  limpid  waters  gaily  bound. 

Francis  began  his  translation  in  the  true 
slipshod  style : — 

Fountain  whose  waters  far  surpass 

The  shining  face  of  polished  glass. 

This  dilution  of 

O Fons  Bandusiae,  splendidior  vitro, 

is  but  too  fair  a specimen  of  the  prevailing 
weakness  of  the  translating  race.  The  chaste 
simplicity,  the  condensed  neatness  of  their 
elaborate  and  artistic  master,  is  what  some  of 
them  seem  to  value  least,  and  all,  more  or  less, 
fail  to  attain.  But  what  perhaps  most  strikes 
a student  of  the  classics  in  the  long  run  is  the 

125 


exquisite  grace  with  which  they  created  beauty 
out  of  slender  materials ; how,  with  less  im- 
agery, wit,  or  depth  of  sentiment  than  we 
demand,  their  light  writers  managed  to  create 
what  should  live  forever. 

This  reflection  brings  us  to  the  most  famous 
and  perfect  of  those  gayer  Horatian  lyrics  with 
which  we  have  been  chiefly  occupied  hitherto. 
We  allude  to  the  often-mentioned  “ Donee 
gratus,”  in  which  ( pace  majorum  /)  Ben  Jonson 
did  not  succeed  ; which  tried  triumphantly  the 
skill  of  Cowley  and  Atterbury,  and  over  which 
meaner  wits  have  a score  of  times  laboured  in 
vain.  What  constitutes  the  difficulty  ? the 
same  quality  which  constitutes  its  charm.  It 
is  perfectly  simple  and  perfectly  finished.  No- 
body can  translate  it,  precisely  because  it  looks 
as  if  everybody  could.  It  is  thoroughly  clas- 
sical. Two  lines  of  our  English  Crashaw, — 

Yet  though  she  cannot  tell  you  why, 

She  can  love  and  she  can  die, — 

open  up  depths  of  poetic  tenderness  which 
it  cannot  hint  at  even  from  afar.  But  who 
remembers  two  more  out  of  the  long  and 
unequal  poem  in  which  these  occur  ? whereas 
the  Latin  poem  is  all  smooth  and  round,  of 
the  same  beauty  in  every  part,  — like  the 

126 


apple  which  Paris  gave  to  the  victorious  god- 
dess. 

Francis,  we  must  do  him  the  justice  to  say,  is 
more  successful  with  the  “ Donee  gratus”  than 
with  many  other  odes.  Yet,  in  his  care  to  be 
simple,  he  is  (almost  unavoidably)  somewhat 
meagre  and  tame.  Of  our  contemporaries, 
Mr.  Robinson  is  as  agreeable  as  his  anxious 
endeavours  to  be  literal  permit.  Professor 
Newman  puts  himself  out  of  the  race  by  so 
execrable  a rendering  of  the  fifth  stanza  that 
we  transcribe  it  here  as  a warning : — 

Quid,  si  prisca  redit  Venus 
diductosque  iugo  cogit  aeneo, 
si  flava  excutitur  Chloe 

reiectaeque  patet  ianua  Lydiae  ? 

What,  if  ancient  Love  return, 

And  with  brazen  yoke  the  sunder’d  join,  — 
Auburn  Chloe  aside  be  toss’d, — 

Jilted  Lydia  s door  to  me  re-ope? 

Lord  Ravensworth  modestly  makes  way  for 
his  friend  Lord  Derby,  whose  very  remarkable 
paraphrase  of  this  lyric  we  extract  with  much 
pleasure.  Old  Dryden  somewhere  says  — not 
without  humour  — that  “ to  understand  criti- 
cally the  delicacies  of  Horace  is  a height  to 
which  few  of  our  noblemen  have  arrived.” 
But  who,  if  not  a great  orator,  should  under- 

127 


stand  poets  ? — “ quibus  est  proxima  cognatio 
cum  oratoribus,”  as  Cicero  justly  observes. 
Long  may  the  eloquence  of  the  Parliament  of 
England  breathe  of  the  roses  of  Paestum,  or 
echo  the  murmurs  of  the  Liris ! Long  may 
the  good  old  tradition  of  the  natural  union  of 
“ gentleman  and  scholar  ” help  to  save  our 
institutions  from  vulgarity  and  degradation  ! 

HORACE 

While  I was  dear  to  thee, 

While  with  encircling  arms. 

No  youth  preferred  to  me 

Dared  to  profane  thy  bosom’s  snowy  charms ; 

I envied  not,  by  thee  adored, 

The  wealth,  the  bliss,  of  Persia’s  lord. 

LYDIA 

While  all  thy  bosom  glowed 
With  love  for  me  alone ; 

While  Lydia  there  abode. 

Where  Chloe  now  has  fixed  her  hateful  throne, 
Well  pleased,  our  Roman  Ilia’s  fame 
I deemed  eclipsed  by  Lydia’s  name. 

HORACE 

’T  is  true  my  captive  heart 
The  fair-haired  Chloe  sways, 

Skilled  with  transcendent  art 

To  touch  the  lyre,  and  breathe  harmonious  lays ; 
For  her  my  life  were  gladly  paid. 

So  heaven  would  spare  my  Cretan  maid. 

128 


LYDIA 


My  breast  with  fond  desire 
For  youthful  Calais  burns, 

Touched  with  a mutual  fire, 

The  son  of  Ornithus  my  love  returns; 

For  him  I ’d  doubly  die  with  joy, 

So  heaven  would  spare  my  Thurian  boy. 

HORACE 

What  if  the  former  chain 
That  we  too  rashly  broke 
We  yet  should  weave  again. 

And  bow  once  more  beneath  th’  accustomed 
yoke  ? 

If  Chloe’s  sway  no  more  I own, 

And  Lydia  fill  the  vacant  throne  ? 

LYDIA 

Though  bright  as  morning  star 
My  Calais’  beaming  brow ; 

Though  more  inconstant  far, 

And  easier  chafed  than  Adria’s  billows  thou ; 
With  thee  my  life  I ’d  gladly  spend, 

Content  with  thee  that  life  to  end. 

The  charm  of  this  composition  is  the  mas- 
tery it  shows  of  harmonious  language.  It  is 
a paraphrase  of  the  original,  of  course,  and 
wants  its  terse  and  naked  simplicity.  But 
when  a writer  doubts  the  possibility,  or  the 
propriety,  of  a close  translation,  it  is  often  his 

i 29 


next  best  course  to  take  a wide  sweep  and  to 
amplify  freely,  — to  desert  Milton,  in  fact,  for 
Dryden.  All  on  which  critics  have  a right  to 
insist  is,  that  he  shall  expand  what  he  finds  in 
his  original : not  load  it  with  modern  associa- 
tions and  allusions.  Even  the  “Otium  Divos  ” 
of  Warren  Hastings,  whatever  its  personal  in- 
terest, is  spoiled,  for  all  purposes  of  classi- 
cal pleasure,  by  “ Mahrattas ” and  “Sikhs,” 
“ Committees,”  and  “ Clives.” 

Lord  Derby’s  good  example  has  not  been 
lost  on  another  illustrious  statesman  and  ora- 
tor, and  we  have  been  favoured  with  the 
following  English  substitute  for  the  same  re- 
nowned amoebaean.  The  contrast  between 
the  version  of  Lord  Derby  and  that  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  the  more  interesting  that  the 
latter  has  adopted  the  literal  style  of  transla- 
tion, and  has  succeeded  in  rendering  some  of 
the  lines  of  the  original  with  particular  feli- 
city : — 

HORACE 

While  no  more  welcome  arms  could  twine 
Around  thy  snowy  neck  than  mine ; 

Thy  smile,  thy  heart,  while  I possest, 

Not  Persia’s  monarch  lived  as  blest. 


130 


LYDIA 


Whilst  thou  didst  feed  no  rival  flame. 

Nor  Lydia  next  to  Chloe  came  ; 

0 then  thy  Lydia's  echoing  name 
Excelled  e’en  Ilia’s  Roman  fame. 

HORACE 

Me  now  Threician  Chloe  sways, 

Skilled  in  soft  lyre  and  softer  lays ; 

My  forfeit  life  I ’ll  freely  give, 

So  she,  my  better  life,  may  live. 

LYDIA 

The  son  of  Ornytus  inspires 
My  burning  breast  with  mutual  fires; 

1 ’ll  face  two  several  deaths  with  joy, 

So  fate  but  spare  my  Thurian  boy. 

HORACE 

What  if  our  ancient  love  awoke. 

And  bound  us  with  its  golden  yoke  ; 

If  auburn  Chloe  I resign, 

And  Lydia  once  again  be  mine  ? 

LYDIA 

Though  brighter  than  a star  is  he. 

Thou  rougher  than  the  Adrian  sea 

And  fickle  as  light  bark,  yet  I 

With  thee  would  live,  with  thee  would  die. 

Lord  Ravensworth  seems  to  us  happiest 
when  employing  the  more  stately  metres  of 

I3I 


our  language.  We  have  heard  his  “ Diffu- 
gere  nives  ” commended  by  an  excellent 
judge,  and  the  twenty  lines  which  we  now 
give  will  show  why : — 

The  winter  snows  have  fled,  the  grassy  lea 
Grows  green,  and  foliage  decks  the  tree ; 

Earth  feels  the  change,  within  their  banks  the  rills 
Diminished  trickle  from  the  hills ; 

With  zone  unbound,  the  Nymphs  and  Graces  dare 
To  frolic  in  the  vernal  air. 

Do  thou  take  warning  from  the  fleeting  year, 

Nor  hope  for  joys  immortal  here. 

Spring  comes,  the  zephyrs  thaw  the  frozen  glade, 
And  summer  follows  soon  to  fade  ; 

Brown  autumn  sheds  his  ripened  fruit,  and  then 
The  sluggish  winter  comes  again. 

Yet  in  this  changeful  system  loss  is  soon 
Repaired  by  each  revolving  moon ; 

Herein  destruction  hath  no  lasting  power  : 

While  we  frail  beings  of  an  hour 
When  once  we  sink  into  the  greedy  grave, 

Which  swallows  up  alike  the  brave, 

The  rich,  the  poor,  the  mighty,  and  the  just, 
Moulder  in  ashes  and  in  dust. 

There  is  a pensive  grace  about  these  lines 
which  reflects,  in  its  autumnal  beauty,  the 
period  of  life  at  which  Horace  had  arrived 
when  he  wrote  the  ode.  His  epicureanism  — 
always  varied  with  flashes  of  a higher  philoso- 
phy — had  now  mellowed  into  a philosophy 
of  his  own,  a mixture  of  indifferentism,  kind- 

132 


liness,  and  contentment,  tinged  with  melan- 
choly. He  seems  to  have  even  grown  tired 
of  the  lyric  labour  which  had  so  long  em- 
ployed his  leisure  and  embodied  his  senti- 
ment ; for  we  know  from  Suetonius  that  he 
only  added  the  Fourth  Book  at  the  urgent 
request  of  the  Emperor,  and  there  is  evident 
earnestness  in  these  lines  (141  seq.)  of  the 
Second  Epistle  of  the  Second  Book,  — the 
Epistles  being  the  depository  of  his  actual 
feelings  as  a private  man  : — 

’T  is  wisdom’ s part  to  bid  adieu  to  toys, 

And  yield  amusements  to  the  tastes  of  boys, 
Not  the  soft  sound  of  empty  words  admire, 

Or  model  measures  to  the  Roman  lyre, 

But  learn  such  strains  and  rhapsodies  as  roll 
Tuneful  thro’  life,  and  harmonise  the  soul. 

The  shadow  of  the  great  coming  darkness 
fell  chill  on  the  fine  sense  of  the  gifted  Pagan  ; 
but  we  are  not  writing  his  biography. 

Of  the  three  classes  into  which  Horace’s 
“ Odes”  may  be  divided, — 1,  the  playful  and 
amatory;  2,  the  moral  and  philosophical;  3, 
the  historic  and  national,  — we  have  hitherto 
dwelt  chiefly  on  the  first,  which  all  translators 
much  affect,  not  only  for  their  artistic  com- 
pleteness, but  because  a certain  universality  in 
their  interest  gives  them  the  advantage  over 

*33 


the  others.  Let  us  vary  the  strain  by  seeing 
how  the  latest  cultivators  of  the  art  of  transla- 
tion acquit  themselves  when  called  on  to  fol- 
low the  poet  in  his  higher  flights.  Horace 
constantly  insists  that  his  muse  is  jocose  and 
trifling ; but  this  was  a piece  of  policy,  to 
save  himself  from  the  “ commands  ” which 
anything  like  a poet-laureate’s  position  would 
have  laid  upon  him.  He  was  certainly  as 
lofty  when  he  aspired,  as  he  was  brilliant  when 
he  trifled. 

Who  has  not  “ crooned,”  as  the  Scotch 
say,  over  the  four  last  stanzas  of  the  “ Eheu 
fugaces,”  which  we  now  borrow  from  Lord 
Ravensworth : — 

In  vain  from  bloody  Mars  we  run, 

In  vain  the  broken  billows  shun 
Of  Hadria’s  roaring  seas  ; 

And  vainly  timorous  seek  to  shroud 
Our  bodies  from  th’  autumnal  cloud 
And  pestilential  breeze. 

Cocytus  in  his  mazy  bed 
Must  soon  or  late  be  visited, 

And  Lethe’s  languid  waters  ; 

And  Sisyphus  despairing  still 
To  mount  th’  insuperable  hill, 

And  Danaus’  guilty  daughters. 

Thy  lands,  and  home,  and  pleasing  wife, 
Must  all  be  left  with  parting  life  ; 

And  save  the  bough  abhorred 

*34 


Of  monumental  cypress,  none 
Of  all  the  trees  thy  care  hath  grown 
Follow  their  short-lived  lord. 

A worthier  heir  shall  grasp  thy  keys. 

And  all  thy  hoarded  vintage  seize 
From  bolts  and  bars  released; 

And  stain  thy  floor  with  nobler  wine 
Than  ever  flowed  at  holy  shrine. 

Or  pontifical  feast. 

Lord  Ravensworth  is  always  more  success- 
ful with  a serious  than  a gay  theme,  and  his 
version  would  probably  have  been  better  in  a 
graver  metre.  But  these  are  flowing  lines, 
decidediy  superior  to  Francis,  who  seems  most 
liable  to  lose  the  dignity  of  the  Latin.  The 
weak  point  of  his  successor,  here  and  else- 
where, is  that  he  is  too  paraphrastic,  as  would 
appear  if  we  had  space  to  quote  from  the  ver- 
sion of  Mr.  Robinson.  Lord  Ravensworth  is 
now  before  his  Horatian  peers,  and  cannot 
plead  his  barony  against  them,  though  it  will 
induce  liberal  men  to  respect  all  the  more  the 
way  in  which  he  has  employed  his  leisure. 
He  has  a good  ear,  good  sense,  and  good 
taste ; but  he  might  much  improve  his  book 
if  he  revised  it  carefully,  with  a special  eye 
to  the  preservation  of  likeness  by  elaboration 
in  details.  Nicety  is  everything.  Horace 

135 


always  uses  the  right  word,  as  Fox  is  reported 
to  have  observed  of  Pitt,  and  each  word  has 
its  own  place,  not  regulated  by  chance,  but  by 
law.  When  he  calls  Barine  the  publica  cura 
of  the  youth  of  her  day,  his  point  ought  not  to 
be  passed  over.  When  he  brings  in  a friend’s 
name  with  delightful  familiarity,  as  in  the 
Fuscus  of  Carm.  I,  22,  that  friend  ought  not 
to  be  blotted  out  of  poetic  existence,  — an 
error  which  the  subjoined  contrast  will  illus- 
trate : — 


The  virtuous  man  whose  heart  within 
Harbours  no  thought  of  secret  sin. 

Needs  not  the  Moorish  archer’s  craft, 

Nor  quiver  armed  with  venomed  shaft. 

Lord  Ravensworth 

The  man,  my  Fuscus,  who  hath  been 
Of  blameless  life,  and  pure  from  sin, 

No  Moorish  bow  or  javelin  needs, 

Or  quiver  fill’d  with  poison’d  reeds. 

Mr.  Robinson 

Neither  will  any  license  excuse  such  a render- 
ing as  — 

Unde  vocalem  temere  insecutae 
Orphea  silvae. 

Whose  trees  in  stately  dance  moved  on 
To  Thracian  Orpheus’  vocal  strain. 

Ravensworth 


136 


— nor  is  it  permissible  to  make  the  flowers 
which  Horace  promises  to  the  fountain  of 
Bandusia  in  sacrifice,  bloom  in  the  translation 
as  flowers  growing  round  that  fountain’s  mar- 
gin. 

Some  people  will  ridicule  such  criticisms  as 
frivolous  and  minute.  But  Lord  Ravensworth 
himself,  we  are  satisfied,  will  not  be  of  the 
number.  Indeed,  he  assures  us  (a  fact  which 
will  not  secure  him  the  respect  of  the  utili- 
tarians of  the  North)  that  he  has  been 
“ twenty  years  trying  every  conceivable  variety 
of  form  ” in  which  to  anglicise 

Duke  ridentem  Lalagen  amabo, 

Duke  loquentem,  — 

the  close  of  the  very  poem  from  which  he  has 
unjustly  banished  Fuscus  ! We  are  especially 
glad  to  be  able  to  praise  the  very  pretty  result 
of  all  this  labour  — 

The  softly  speaking  Lalage, 

The  softly  smiling  still  for  me,  — 

one  of  the  best  attempts  at  an  impossibility 
which  we  know  ! Strange  praise,  no  doubt, 
in  the  eyes  of  practical  men,  but  an  Horatian 
translator  can  scarcely  hope  for  more. 

We  shall  now  open  our  Horace  at  one  of 
those  historic  odes  where  he  catches  for  a 

7 


brief  while  the  spirit  of  an  antique  Roman, 
and  the  colour  of  the  national  blood  rises  to 
the  cheek  of  the  artist.  In  the  song  of  tri- 
umph for  the  fall  of  Cleopatra,  Lord  Ravens- 
worth  is  again  assisted  with  a translation  by 
Lord  Derby,  but  he  contends  for  the  laurel 
along  with  him,  and  many  of  our  readers  will 
be  glad  to  see  the  contest.  We  take  up  the 
strain  at  the  point  where  panic  has  seized 
the  Eastern  queen,  and  her  galleys  in  all  their 
bird-like  beauty  are  hurrying  through  the 
agitated  sea  : — 

Then  assailed  her  stricken  soul, 

Frenzied  with  the  wassail  bowl, 

Terrors  true,  and  wild  despair. 

When  as  falcon  from  above. 

Pounces  on  the  timorous  dove. 

Or  hunters  chase  o’er  Haemon’s  snow  the  hare. 

Oar  and  sail  incessant  plying, 

As  he  marked  her  galleys  flying, 

Caesar  urged  the  headlong  race ; 

Deeming  that  his  wondrous  prize 
Soon  should  gladden  Roman  eyes, 

And  bound  in  chains  his  haughty  triumph  grace. 

Nobly  she  to  death  resigned. 

Not  with  woman’s  shrinking  mind, 

Gazed  upon  the  deadly  knife  ; 

Nor  within  some  friendly  creek, 

Basely  lurking  did  she  seek 
To  save  from  death  a now  dishonoured  life. 


On  her  prostrate  citadel 

Dared  her  dauntless  eyes  to  dwell ; 

Firm  of  purpose,  calm  she  stood, 

Holding  with  unflinching  grasp, 

To  her  breast  applied  the  asp, 

Whose  venom  dire  she  drank  through  all  her  blood. 

Sternly  resolute  she  died ; 

Nor  could  stoop  her  royal  pride, 

That,  reserved  to  swell  a show. 

She,  a woman  and  a queen, 

Should  be  led  like  captive  mean 
Through  streets  of  Rome  to  grace  her  conquering 
foe. 

Lord  Derby 


Actium’s  bay, 

Behold  her  anguish  and  dismay, 

When  steering  past  in  full  retreat, 

She  left  in  flames  her  scattered  fleet. 

And  lo  ! great  Caesar,  from  his  deck, 

Urges  his  rowers  to  the  chase. 

Where  saved  alone  amid  the  wreck. 

The  Queen  bewildered  flies  apace, 

As  through  the  clouds  in  middle  air 
The  falcon  pounces  on  the  dove. 

Or  Thracian  hunters  drive  the  hare 
Trembling  through  Haemonia’s  grove; 

So  thought  our  leader  to  secure  his  spoil, 
And  bear  her  off  in  chains  to  far  Italia's  soil. 
But  she  whose  spirit  proud  and  high 
Refused  to  brook  indignity, 

No  womanly  alarm  betrayed 
At  dagger’s  point  and  gleaming  blade  ; 

Nor  sought  the  covert  of  the  coast 

*39 


For  refuge  when  the  day  was  lost ; 

But  with  unruffled  visage  dared 
H er  ruined  palace  to  regard  ; 

And  fearless  clasped  that  fatal  worm 
Whose  subtle  venom  did  defile 
Her  royal  blood  and  glorious  form, 

Sovereign  o’er  all  the  realms  of  Nile  ! 

Haughty  in  her  deliberate  death ! 

And  choosing  rather  to  resign  her  breath 
Than  live  the  prize  of  her  victorious  foe. 

And  grace  in  gilded  bonds  a Roman  triumph’s  show. 

Lord  Ravensworth 

There  is  spirit  and  flow  in  both  these  ver- 
sions. Lord  Derby’s  is  nearer  the  sense  of 
the  original,  and  it  has  also  the  great  advan- 
tage of  being  written  in  a uniform  metre. 
Laxity  in  this  particular  breeds  laxity  in 
others  ; where  the  music  may  at  any  time  be 
changed,  the  sense  will ; and  in  the  last  nine 
or  ten  lines  Lord  Ravensworth’s  love  of  para- 
ph  rase  flies  away  with  him  altogether.  This 
is  the  more  provoking,  because  a line  like  — 
Haughty  in  her  deliberate  death  — 

has  just  that  pregnant  compactness  which  a 
student  of  Horace  most  admires  in  this  class 
of  his  odes.  Felicity  of  expression  is  one  of 
the  happiest  qualities  of  a translator,  and  no 
self-indulgent  freedom  should  be  allowed  to 
spoil  its  development  by  any  writer  who  at  all 

140 


possesses  the  gift.  Our  lords  are  fortunate  in 
their  competitors  in  this  lyric.  The  orthodox 
translator,  Francis,  is  both  tame  and  odd;  Mr. 
Robinson  seems  less  at  home  than  in  gayer 
and  lighter  pieces.  Professor  Newman,  not- 
withstanding the  natural  power  which  rarely 
deserts  him,  is  crabbed  and  quaint,  as  witness 
his  wind-up : — 

She  her  prostrate  palace  dared, 

Calm  of  brow,  to  visit.  She 
Fell  asps  was  brave  to  grasp,  imbruing 
Veins  and  flesh  with  gloomy  poison. 

Fiercer  in  deliberate  death,  — 

Yea,  she  grudged,  by  cruel  sloop 
Borne  off,  to  walk,  no  vulgar  woman, 

Stript  of  rank,  in  haughty  triumph. 

It  would  be  easy  to  add  to  these  specimens 
of  translation,  without  some  of  which  no  opin- 
ion could  be  formed  on  the  subject  at  all. 
But  we  shrink  from  overloading  our  pages 
with  quotation,  and  we  have  already  illus- 
trated nearly  all  the  varieties  of  treatment  of 
which  the  art  of  Horatian  translation  admits. 
We  have  seen  it  rise  from  rude  but  promising 
beginnings ; change  its  fashion  with  the  fash- 
ions of  the  literature  which,  as  we  ought 
always  to  remember,  itself  largely  helped  to 

141 


nourish  and  refine  ; produce,  in  the  hands  of 
illustrious  writers,  works  of  permanent  beauty 
and  value ; and  finally  we  now  see  it  cultivated 
with  skill  and  assiduity,  and  with  a success 
above  the  average  of  past  times.  If  we  can- 
not rival  certain  remarkable  efforts,  still  we 
would  undertake  to  turn  out  a version  by  our 
“ Eminent  Hands  ” truer  to  Horace  and  to 
Nature  than  were  those  which  issued  from  the 
shops  of  Lintot  and  Dodsley.  No  one  transla- 
tor, perhaps,  is  entitled  to  put  aside  Francis  ; 
but  the  general  run  of  translation  is  better 
than  his.  Had  it  fallen  within  our  scheme 
to  draw  on  the  periodicals  of  the  day,  we 
might  have  further  strengthened  this  view. 
Father  Prout  still  lives  in  the  translated 
thought  and  transfused  grace  of  the  poet  of 
Tivoli,  — 

Spirat  adhuc  amor. 

And  the  occasional  efforts  of  Bon  Gaultier, 
Mr.  Theodore  Martin,  induce  us  to  hope  that 
he  will  one  day  give  to  the  world  the  com- 
plete fruit  of  an  Horatian  labour  which  has 
been  long  continued.  An  age  of  civilisation, 
culture,  and  refinement,  is  just  the  age  when 
Horace  ought  to  be  successfully  naturalised 
amongst  us,  and  his  admirers  well  know  that 

142 


traits  which  he  sketched  in  the  Rome  of 
Augustus  come  curiously  to  the  surface  in 
the  London  of  to-day. 

The  task  is  so  difficult  of  translating  Hor- 
ace in  any  way,  that  no  sensible  man  will  lay 
down  rigid  rules  as  to  what  “ ways  ” are  ad- 
missible, and  what  not.  Milton’s  “ Pyrrha,” 
as  a whole,  is  lovely,  but  who  knows  whether 
Milton  himself  did  not  try  similar  transla- 
tions, and  reject  the  results  as  unsatisfactory  ? 
Dryden’s  “ Tyrrhena  regum  progenies  ” is 
paraphrastical  in  the  extreme,  but  a version, 
literal  and  ugly,  would  have  been  just  as  great 
a departure  from  the  Horatian  reality  in  an- 
other direction.  And  in  that  case  there  would 
have  been  this  additional  disadvantage,  that 
the  literal  failure  would  have  been  only  a fail- 
ure, while  the  paraphrase  is  a fine  poem. 
Our  complaint  of  Mr.  Newman  is  not  that 
his  rhythms  are  new,  and  that  he  despises  the 
ordinary  ornaments  of  our  common  poetry. 
We  respect  the  rhythms  as  experiments,  and 
we  honour  the  exactness  as  exactness ; we 
only  assert  that  it  is  but  one  quality,  and 
that  he  has  not  yet  proved  that  his  novelty 
of  workmanship  is  compatible  with  the 
ease,  grace,  and  music,  which  are  as  much 

143 


essentials  as  the  downright  meaning  of  phrases 
and  words.  We  should  say  the  same  of  Mr. 
Sewell,  whose  system,  though  not  identical,  is 
similar.  But  in  reality  he  only  seems  to  in- 
tend his  Horace  for  a help  to  students,  and  as 
such  we  wish  it  every  success.  In  fact,  though 
we  are  ready  to  welcome  excellence,  whether 
in  the  literal,  paraphrastical,  or  intermediate 
methods,  the  predominant  caution  that  rises 
to  our  pen  as  we  dismiss  the  subject  is,  that  it 
is  really  translation,  the  reproduction  of  Hor- 
ace himself,  which  is  to  be  desired,  and  the 
greater  danger  ultimately  is  his  who  thinks 
himself  entitled  to  take  liberties  and  to  over- 
look details.  An  infusion  of  Pre-Rapha- 
elitism  would  do  no  harm  to  this  cognate  art ; 
and  if  we  wanted  to  give  a youthful  aspirant 
some  practical  advice  towards  attaining  more 
of  the  reality  of  the  antique  model  in  his 
copy,  we  should  recommend  to  him  a care- 
ful study  of  statues,  coins,  and  gems.  The 
polite  arts,  Cicero  tells  us,  are  all  related.  The 
ancient  life  is  necessary  to  the  understanding 
of  the  ancient  poetry,  and  perhaps  it  really 
requires  as  much  learning  to  translate  Horace 
as  to  edit  him. 


144 


PRINTED  BY  H.  O.  HOUGHTON  & CO. 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  U.  S.  A. 

SBD&e  Mttoerstoe  pres# 


■ 


' 


Date  Due 


Jul20'4C 

ini 

4*  2 

f 1 

1 V , 

rw  2 

:*  1968 

i 

IK  ■ 6.1968 

MAR  ? 1 1 

393 

lv!nn  i_  1 1 

ft  PR  15  13 

<!> 

/ 


boston  college 


3 9031  01150053 


104648 


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